The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1896-10-08
PICTURESQUE RoNDA.
A Spanish City on q Crag, Where the Pee.
pie Are as Savage as Their Home.

A Spanish City on a Crag, Where the PEG.
pie Are as Savage as Their Home.
Then he went to Ronda, which Is q
dream of picturesqueness. There is in
congruity in the thought that you can
mako the journey thither as simply as If
you were going from New York to Phila.
dolphia. The town, as ]. walked through
it, seemed commonplace at first-oommon-
place, that Is, for a southern town, where
one accepts marvels of color and light az
matters of course. His impression was
one of awful glazing heat, of donkeys and
donkeys and more donkeys everywhere, of
little low houses SO white one could hardly
look at them, of glimpses into long, cool
entries, where people were forever standing
waiting for an inner door to open. And
then suddenly there before him was tho
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 Roberts, have tried to draw
or paint, despairing even while thoy sought
to record the strange, almost exaggerated,
picturesqueness of the wild mountain
gorge, with the little white town looking
down so fearlessly from its dizzy post.
There is something in the contrast that
seems to suggest-but with difference
the gay villages that nestle so confidently
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
guidebook, that the gorge is there at all.
Who could suppose that the river, appar-
emily at least, would force its way through
the very highest part of the mountain
There Is little alameda whore one can
stand, leaning against the railing, and
gaze down for I do not know how many
hundreds or thousands Of feet. 1t Is hero,
of all places, that one realizes the awful
height of the precipice, but it is from below
one sees the marvel best and most COM
prchensively-fromf 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, rs 1t were,
across the roaring stream, as fantastic and
unreal and enhancing as any arabian
Nights" picture.
1t is only as 1t should be to find the peo-
pie as fantastic as their high built TOWN.
SO grisly and ghoulish, indeed, that 1t is
hard to talk about them; SO savage in their
JnHulleTs UiihG UHey AiiSHo UNIV tho iioAo
timid traveller quickly away and back to
civilization. When any one comes to draw
the great bridge from the appropriate
point beneath, the sport Of the leading cit
liens Is to gather in crowds upon 1t and
throw stones upon the rocky hillsides,
starting an avalanche which makes the
artist who has been foolish enough to go
there drop his work and run for his life.
Still, suppose one must pay somehow for
the privilege Of visiting the most SEN
sational place in Spain. Its wonderful
position, It's magnificent bridges Its
beautiful little valley, where the finest
fruit in Spain Is grown, Its encircling
crown of Sierra, make up to a certain ex-
tent for the discomfort of staying in Its
horrible boarding house among the say
age brutes of its population
Robins Pennell in Century.