The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1896-10-02
PICTURESQUE K0NbA
4 Spanish City on a Crag, Where the Poo
pie Are as Savage Us Their Home.

4 Spanish City on Crag, Where the Peo~
pie Are 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
make the journey thither as simply as if
you were going from New York to Phila-
delphia The town, as J. walked through
it, seemed commonplace Mt first-common-
place, that is, for u southern town, where
one accepts marvels of color and light as
matters of course His impression was
one of awful glaring heat, OF donkeys and
donkeys and more dCnkeys everywhere, of
little low houses so white 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 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 tle
days of David Roberts, have tried to draw
ur paint, dcspairing even while they sought
TO record the strange almost exaggerated,
picturesqueness of the wild mountain
gorge, with tho little white town looking
down so fcarlcssly from its dizzy post
There is something i'll the contrast that
seems to suggest-but with II difference
the gay Villages that nestle so confidently
at the base of Ecsuvius. The strangcst
part of 1t is that until one comes to the
bridge one does not know, except from the
guidebook, that the gorge is there 1T all.
Who could suppose that the river, appar-
entity at 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 do not know how many
hundreds or thousands Of feet. 1t Is here,
of all places, that one realizes the awful
height Of the prccipiCc, but it Is from below
one sees the marvel best and most com
prchensively--frOm far below, where ono
can follow the windings of the white road
along the very edge of the cliff and under
stately white gatCways ard lCok to the
bridges hanging in tho air, rs it were,
across the roaring stream, as fantastic and
unreal and enhancing as any Arabian
Nights " picture.
1t is only rs it should be to find the peo-
pie rs fantastic rs their high built town
so grisly ard 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 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 hillsidcs,
starting an avalanche which makes the
artist who has been foolish enough to go
there drop his work and run for his life.
Still, 1 suppose one must pay somehow for
tho privilege Of visiting tho most SELL
sational place in Spain. Its wonderful
position, its magnificent bridges, its
81 kH,
fruit in Spain is grown, its encircling
crown of Sierra, make up to certain ez-
tent for the discomfort of staying in its
horrible boarding house among the saw
age brutes of its Observation-Disclosures
Robins Pannell in Century