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.