Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1896-10-16
PICTURESQUE RoNCA.
a srnnish city on Crag, Where the Peo-
PIE Are ns savage as Their Home.


Then lie went to Ronda, which is a
dream Of picturc>quencss. There is in
congiuty in The thought that you can
make the journey thither rs simply as if
you N.,ic going from Ncw York to Phila-
delpEh. Tho town, as j. walked through
it, seemed commonplace at flrst-common-
Place. that Is, for a southern town, where
one accepts marVrls of color aud light as
matters of course. His impression was
one of awful glaring heat. of donkeys and
donkcys and more dOnkeys every where, of
little low houses 50 white one could hardly
look Mt Them of glimpscs into long, cool
entries, where people were forever standing
waiting for an inner door to open. And
then suddenly there before him was the
bridge flung across that wonderful chasm
the bridge that Joins old to new Ronda,
the bridge that 80 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,
picturesqueness of the wild mountain
gorge with tho 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 Nesuvius. The strangest
| part Of it Is that until one comes to the
| bridge one does mt know, except from the
! gudebook that the gorge is there at all.
! Who could suppose that the river, appar
/ entity ut least would force its way through
| the very highest part of the mountain?
! There is little alameda where one can
! stand, lean * against the railing and
! gaze down for l do not know how many
| hundreds or thousands Of feet. 1t is here
! 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
prehensively-frOm far below, where one
can follow the wndings 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, as it were.
across the roaring stream, az fantastic and
unreal and enhancing as any Arabian
Nights picture
1t is only as it should be to find the peo-
pie as fantastic as their high built town
so grisly and gyhoulish, 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 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 it and
throw stones upon the rocky hillsiCcS,
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 somehow for
the privilege of visiting the most sen
sutionul place in Spain. Its wonderful
position, its magnificent bridges, its
beautiful little valley, where the finest
fruit in Srain is grown, its encrcling
crown of Sierra, make up to ii certain ex-
tent for the discomfort of staying in its
horrible boarding house among the say
age brutes of its opulation.-Elizabeth
Robius Penncll in Century.