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1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Puerto de Santa Maria

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26136651911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 22 — Puerto de Santa Maria

PUERTO DE SANTA MARIA, a seaport of southern Spain, in the province of Cadiz, on the right bank of the river Guadalete, with a station on the railway from Cadiz to Seville. Pop. (1900), 20,120. Puerto de Santa Maria, commonly called “ El Puerto,” is probably the Menesthei Portus of Ptolemy. Its most important industry is the wine trade; there are also glass, liqueur, alcohol, starch and soap manufactures. The principal buildings are a Moorish citadel, a Gothic church founded in the 13th century, a Jesuit college, and a bull-ring which accommodates 12,000 spectators. The town is noted for its bull-fights, that given here in honour of Wellington being the subject of the considerably idealized description in Byron's Childe Harold.