The Roanoke daily times. (Roanoke, Va.) 1895-1897, 1896-10-04
CITY BUILT ON A CRAG.
Picturesque Location Of Ronds, Built on
E5A.s, the Spanish Coast.


MA,S the Spanish Coast.
Then he went TO Ronda, which is
dream of picturesG 'eness. There is in
congruity in the the. hit that you can
make the journey thither as simply rs If
you were going from New York to Phil
adelphia. The town, as j. walked
through it, seemed commonplace ut first
commonplace, that is, for a Southern
town, where one accepts marvels of color
and light rs a matter of course. His i'm
preston was one of awful glazing heat;
of donkeys and dohkoys and more don
keys everywhere; of little low houses, so
white that one could hardly look ut them;
of glimpses into long cool entries, where
people were forever standing waiting for
an inner door to open. And then, sud
denly, there before him was the bridge,
flung across that wonderful chasm-the
bridge that joins old to new Ronda; the
bridge that SO many artists since the
days of David ROBBERS have tried to draw
or paint, despairing even while they
sought to record the strange, almost ex-
aggerated, picturesqueness of the wild
mountain gorge with the little white
town looking down so fearlessly from it's
dizzy post
There is something in that contrast
that seems to suggest-but with differ
CuCc--IHO Soy fliitSSS blldO ueSGlG So COu-
fidently at the base of Vesuvius. The
strangest part of it is that until one
comes to the bridge one does not know,
except from the guide book, that the
gorge is there at all. Who would sup
pose that the river apparently, ut least,
would force its way through the very
highest part of the mountain? There is
little Alameda where one can stand
leaning against the railing, and gaze
down for l know not how many hum
dreds or thousands of feet. 1t is here, of
all places, that one realizes the awful
height Of the precipice; but it is from be-
low that one sees the marvel best and
most comprehensively- far below
where one can follow the windings of the
white road along the very edge of the
cliff, and under stately white gateways,
and look to the bridges hanging in the
air, us it were, across the roaring stream,
ms fantastic and unreal and enhancing as
any Arabian Nights picture.
1t is only as it should be to find the
people as fantastic as their high-built
town-so grisly and ghoulish, indeed,
that it is hard to talk about them! so
savage in their manners that they might
drive the more timid traveller quick away
and back to civilization. When anyone
comes to draw the great bridge from the
appropriate point beneath, the sport of
the leading citizens is to gather in crowds
upon it and throw stones upon the rocky
hills, starting an avalanche which makes
the artist who has been foolish enough
to go there drop his work and run for his
life. Still, l suppose, one must pay
something for the privilege of visiting one
| of the most sensational places in Spain.
| It's wondc-f',I position, It's magnificen,
/ bridges, its beautiful little valleys
where the finest fruit in Spain is grown
its encircling crown of sierra, make up
to certain extent, for the discomfort O.
staying in its horrible boarding houses
among the savage brutes of its popula
tion.-Century Magazine.