and supposed miraculously to cure insanity. The wonder in this part of the mountains is to find any springs that do not run red. Quiteria, who has given virtue to this spring, is a person of problematical existence. Once upon a time—the Bollandists even know not when—there lived a King Katillas and his wife Calsia, who inhabited doubtlessly a Château en Espagne. Queen Calsia gave birth to nine daughters at once, and being afraid what the King would say, gave them to the nurse with orders to drown them like puppies. But the nurse took them to her home, and reared all in the Christian faith. In time of persecution the nine damsels dispersed, but were caught and offered the alternative of marriage or death. They accepted the latter. One of them, named Wilgefortis, when pestered by a princely suitor, prayed, and lo! out sprouted a thick beard and moustache. She was crucified. Quiteria's head was struck off with a sword. But unwilling to be less of an oddity than her sister, after death she developed into three entire bodies. One became the perquisite of the Portuguese, another of the Spaniards, and the Gascons got hold of the third, and buried it at Aire. I have little doubt that, when a man reputed insane was brought to Quiteria's well and made to drink eight tumblers full of the red water, he remonstrated, and vowed that he was well; whereupon his relations cried out, "A miracle! He has spoken sensibly. Thanks be to Quiteria."
To Tarascon comes the iron ore from the mines in the Vicdessos valley in carts and tumbrils, and is there smelted. There are here also quarries of gypsum for the manufacture of plaster of Paris.
To the south of the town is the church of Notre Dame de Sabart, so-called from Sabarthès, the name of the little
