Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1896-10-15
PICTURESQUE RONDA.
A Spanish City on a Crag Where the Peo-
pie Are as Savage as Their Home.

pie Are as Savage as Their Home.
Then he went to Ronda, which is @
dream of picturesqueness. There is in
congruity in the thought that you can
make the journey thither MS simply as
If you were going from New York to
Philadelphia. The town, US j. walked
through it, seemed commonplace at
first-commonplace that is, for south
ern town, where one accepts marvels of
color and light as matters of course
His impression was one of awful glar'
ing heat: of donkeys, and donkeys, and
more donkeys everywhere; of little low
houses so white that one could hardly
look at them; of glimpses into long,
cool entries, where people were forever
standing waiting for an inner door tn
open. And then, suddenly, there be-
fore 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
Roberts, have tried to draw or paint,
despairing even while they sought to
record the strange, almost exaggerated.
picturcsqueness of the wild mountain
gorge, with the little white town look.
ing down so fearlessly from its dizzy
post.
There is something in the contrast
that seems to suggest-but with diff
ference-the gay villages that nestle SO
confidently at the base of Vesuvius. The
Rtrangest part of it is that until ONT
comes to the bridge one does not know.
except from the guide book, that the
gorge is there at all. Who could sup
pose that the river, apparently at least
would force it's way through the very
highest part of the mountain? There
is little Alameda, where one can stands
leaning against the railing, and gaze
down for l do not know how many
thousands of feet. 1t is here, of all
places, that one realizes the awful
height of the precipice; but it is from
below that one sees the marvel best and
most vely-from far below,
where one can follow the windings OF
the white road along the very edge of
the cliff, and under stately white gate
ways, and look to the bridges hanging
III Jllc XII. IL "ClS, uSlooo bhS AOol
stream, as fantastic and unreal and Ell
trancing 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
quickly away and back to civilization.
When anyone comes to draw the great
bridge from the appropriate point be-
meath, the sport of the leading citizens
is to gather in crowds upon it, 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 sensational place in Spain. Its
wonderful position, its magnificent
bridges, it's beautiful little valley,
where the finest fruit in Spain is grown,
it's 'encircling crown of sierra, make up
to a certain extent for the discomfort
of staying in it's horrible boarding
house. among the savage brutes of itn
population.-Eliza Robins Pencil,
in Century. &.