Ebro River

“ Almost the whole of the province belongs to the region watered by the Duero and its affluents. This river rises among the southern slopes of Urbion and traverses the province in a circuitous course, first to the south and then to the west. The other rivers are mostly affluents of the Duero, but a few of the tributaries of the Ebro have their sources within the limits of the province. The soil is not remarkable for fertility; a large proportion of the area being occupied with barren mountains, which are covered with snow for a great part of the year. ”

“ The sole exception is to be found in the valley of the Ebro, where the only good cross-road of Northern Spain does follow the river-bank from Logroño and Tudela on to Saragossa and Lerida.
Just because the roads do not cling to the valleys, but strike across them at right angles, they are always crossing watersheds by means of difficult passes. And so there is hardly a route in the whole Peninsula where it is possible to find fifty miles without a good defensive position drawn across the path. ”

“ It is navigable to Cordova, and large vessels go up to Seville. The Ebro is the only large river that flows into the Mediterranean. It is three hundred and forty miles long, and is navigable for boats about half this distance. Great efforts have been made to improve the navigation of some of these rivers, especially the largest of them. There are no lakes of any consequence in Spain, the largest being a mere lagoon on the seashore near Valencia.
“Spain has a population of sixteen millions, which places it as the tenth in rank among the nations of Europe. ”

“ It chanced, that on the fourth day after the arrival of Luis and the Villabuenas from Salamanca, the two latter rode over to the Ebro, below Tudela, for the purpose of bathing. They were not good swimmers, and [Pg 530] were moreover unaccustomed to bathe in so rapid and powerful a stream. A peasant, who observed two horses tied to a tree, and some clothes upon the grass by the river side, but who could see nothing of the owners, suspected an accident, and gave the alarm. ”

“ To the south of the rivers of the plateau the only considerable stream is the Guadalquiver, with its tributaries. The character of this river is entirely different to that of the former streams. Like the Ebro, it forms a true valley, instead of merely cutting its way through rocks, cañons, and defiles. Its bed is on an average about 1200 feet below that of the Guadiana in the greater part of its course. It is also the only river in Spain of any utility for navigation; the tide is felt beyond Seville, and vessels of 200 to 300 tons ascend to that city. ”

“ The Royal Canal of Tauste, which lies along the north side of the Ebro, was cut for purposes of irrigation, and gives fertility to the district. Two leagues north-north-east of Albarracin is the remarkable fountain called Cella, 3700 ft. above the 314 sea, which forms the source of the Jiloca; and between this river and the Sierra Molina is an extensive lake called Gallocanta, covering about 6000 acres. The climate is characterized by extreme heat in the summer and cold in the winter ”

“ The whole province is included in 855 the basin of the Ebro, and is drained by four of its principal tributaries—the Aragon in the north-west, the Gallego in the west, the Cinca in the centre, and the Noguera Ribagorzana along part of the eastern border. These rivers rise among the Pyrenees, and take a southerly course; the two last-named unite with the Segre on their way to join the Ebro. The Cinca receives the combined waters of the Alcanadre and Isuela on the right and the Esera on the left.
The climate varies much according to the region ”

“ LOGROÑO, the capital of the Spanish province of Logroño, on the right bank of the river Ebro and on the Saragossa-Miranda de Ebro railway. Pop. (1900) 19,237. Logroño is an ancient walled town, finely situated on a hill 1204 ft. high. Its bridge of twelve arches across the Ebro was built in 1138, but has frequently been restored after partial destruction by floods. The main street, arcaded on both sides, and the crooked but highly picturesque alleys of the older quarters are in striking contrast with the broad, tree-shaded avenues and squares laid out in modern times. ”

“ The last-named is the second of European rivers, and forms, with its navigable tributaries, the route for traffic between Central Europe and the East.
The Po, the Rhone (the most rapid European river, though of little value for navigation) , and the Ebro flow into the Mediterranean. ”

“ A narrow strip of fertile land along the rivers stands out in contrast to the desolate country beyond. Thus the Ebro flows through Aragon, among woods of silver birch and poplars, and plantations of olives and vines and maize; but on either side appears the barren country of perfectly bare reddish or brown hills of crumbling earth, like great sand-dunes, without a plant, curiously folded and scored by rushing water, with intricate, abrupt hollows and catacombs. The villages are the colour of the soil, and at no great distance are scarcely distinguishable from a bare hill-side. ”

“ The inhabitants of the valley of the Ebro are offensively haughty, of sluggish minds, given to old customs and superstitions, but they are at the same time singularly persistent, and their bravery does credit to their Celtiberian ancestors. These fine broad-shouldered men, who follow their donkeys along the high-roads, the head enveloped in a silken kerchief, and the waist confined by a violet-coloured belt, are at all times ready for a fight. ”

“ This great water artery receives no affluents for more than 1500 miles from its mouth—the Atbara River, meeting it above Berber, being the last tributary that joins it,—and throughout a considerable portion of its lower course, reckoned from the Nubian Desert northwards, the people can only live by congregating close to its banks. ”

“ And standing beside the white waters with the ground shaking underfoot to the tune of their mighty onrush, with the meadows, trees, and flowers round about, the awesome cliffs for guardians, and the bright blue sky over all, it requires no visionary to conjure up legendary cities at this river's end, for but half lend yourself to the notion and the glorious Sierran stream becomes a beckoning highway to a land of pleasant dreams. ”

“ The high bluff thus formed is known to the natives throughout all that region as Elbow Rock.
The quiet waters of The Bend move so gently on their broad course that from the porch, looking up the stream, the eye could scarcely mark the current. But in front of the little log house, where the restraining banks of the river draw closer together, the lazy current awakens to quickening movement. ”

“ It will challenge the world....
The valley of the Ebro—Nile of Spain and historic artery of all her bloods—is still below. The way from Jaca down is short but steep. The wall of the Pyrenees,{95} in a few miles, drops seven thousand feet: but drops, not as northward upon smiling France—drops to desolation. Aragon which began as mountain wall becomes a yellow waste: and save for the narrow corridor of the Ebro, all Aragon is this. It is the bottom of what was once a sea. The rocks of the Pyrenees, of Catalonia, of Valencia and Castile are the rim of the dry bowl through which the Ebro trickles. ”

“ And many were the tales of stirring adventure and tragic accident at this dangerous point of the river's journey to the far-away sea. Skilled rivermen, by holding their John-boats and canoes close to the far shore, might run the rapids with safety. But no boat, once caught in the vicious grip of the main current between the comparatively still waters of The Bend and that wild, roaring tumult at Elbow Rock, had ever survived. ”

“ At length, after a sound buffeting with the rain, the doubling Cape Wrath with this wind is renounced as impracticable, and we stand away for Loch Eribol, a lake running into the extensive country of Lord Reay. No sickness; we begin to get hardy sailors in that particular. The ground rises upon us very bold and mountainous, especially a very high steep mountain, called Ben-y-Hope, at the head of a lake called Loch Hope. The weather begins to mitigate as we get under the lee of the land. Loch Eribol opens, running up into a wild and barren scene of crags and hills. ”

“ They presently crossed the Aspendia Canal, where the fog hung over the water like white smoke, hiding the figure of the tutelary goddess of the town on the parapet of the bridge from those who crossed by the roadway. The leaves of the mimosa-trees by the quay—nay, the very stones of the houses and the statues, wet with the morning dew—looked revived and newly washed; and a light breeze brought up from the Serapeum broken tones of the chant, sung there every morning by a choir of priests, to hail the triumph of light over darkness. ”

“ Our party left it rather with relief, and wandered down to the fine old bridge over the Ebro, which is here a broad and rapid stream, and amused themselves by watching the boats shooting through the piers—an operation of some danger, owing to the rapidity of the current. There is a beautiful leaning tower of old Moorish and Roman brickwork, in a side street, but which you are not allowed to ascend without a special order from the prefect. The Lonja, or Exchange, is also well worth seeing, from its beautiful deep overhanging roof. ”

“ But, alas, for Ebor, as they rode away he glanced towards the banks of the shining river, and he saw the woman of the Sidhe weaving her fateful spells.
The pathways of the silent forest were well known to Ebor, and he rode on with his charge over pleasant mossy ways, reminding Edain of those which she had seen in her dream. They had gone not more than a quarter of a mile when she, who had been prattling merrily to Ebor, uttered a frightened cry:
“Oh, Ebor, look; there are armed men!” ”

“ The soil and climate are so genial that less labor is required than in other countries; but a great deal of the fertility of the beautiful valley must be ascribed to the ingenious system of irrigation, which is produced by a dam constructed in the river above El Paso, which turns a large body of water into a canal. This canal, spreading into numerous branches and re-uniting again, provides all the cultivated land with a sufficiency of moisture. ”

“ If then we suppose that the bank c B d and the regulator B only existed to collect the flood waters, and turn them into the lake, and that a regulator at Hawârah at F also existed to keep excess water out of the lake, such an arrangement would agree with Strabo’s statement that “when the river falls, the lake again discharges the water by a canal at both orifices, and it is available for irrigation. There are regulators at both ends of the canal for regulating the inflow and outflow.” ”

“ I know few more characteristic thoroughfares than the road by the river-side at Oporto, called the Ribeira, which is the centre of maritime activity of the port. The path runs beneath what was the ancient river-wall, now pierced or burrowed out to form caverns of shops, where wine and food, cordage and clothing are sold to sailor men. Many of the open doors have vine trellises before them, in the shade of which quaintly garbed groups forgather, and a constant tide of men and women flows along the path, eddying into and out of the cavernous recesses in the ancient wall. ”

“ The arroba is a Spanish weight, equal to twenty-five pounds of sixteen ounces each.
Continuing the voyage with a fair wind, the governor arrived, on the evening of the 25th October, at a place where the river divides into three channels. One arm forms a great lagoon, which the Indians call the Black River; it runs towards the north into the interior of the country. The other arms, in which the water is of a good colour, reunite a little way further down. ”

“ The River Earn, if it lacks the majesty of the Tay and the impetuosity of the Garry, makes itself recognised as the dominating feature, whether in its quiet meandering moods or in the flooded temper, overflowing its banks and spreading its deposit of alluvial soil. ”

“ Leaving Naliele, amid abundance of good wishes for the success of our expedition, and hopes that we might return accompanied with white traders, we began again our ascent of the river. It was now beginning to rise, though the rains had but just commenced in the valley. The banks are low, but cleanly cut, and seldom sloping. At low water they are from four to eight feet high, and make the river always assume very much the aspect of a canal. They are in some parts of whitish, tenacious clay, with strata of black clay intermixed, and black loam in sand, or pure sand stratified. ”

“ The next famine they will require to dig and blast downward and still downward till they find the underground river and the runaway water. Coming past the costly and well-built bridge which spans the almost dry stream that pours into the leaky canal somewhere, I saw some women round a hollow in the stream that retained a little water. ”

“ Some of the mills “below bridge” are Moorish, and very picturesque; as are also the crenated, ivy-clustered towers of the city walls overhanging the river. On the right bank of the stream, above the bridge, a handsome quay is (1833) constructing; but, as the “great river” is navigable only for small boats, the sum expended on this costly work appears to be an absolute waste of money, which ought rather to have been laid out in sinking a channel, so as to render the river practicable for barges and trading vessels down to Seville. ”