The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-05-10

| tantS LOS Slete SlllaS tThe seven
 Seats'O, from the seven divisions of its
 benches-retains an unbroken semi-clr-
 cle, and it's vomitoria or passages for
 entrance and exit running beneath the seats, are yet perfect.
 Most picturesque and imposing of all the Roman remains in Merida Is the Acqueduct, stretching across the barren
 country from the railway station. It is | formed of immense granite blocks, with | narrow, horizontal courses of brick. Thirty-seven of it's piers remain, some
 of them ninety feet high and arched in three tiers, each pier crowned with a stork's nest. Farther to the east, near
 the ugly Spanish acqueduct which l crosses the Albarregas river (he an 1 cient Alba regia), are several broken | shafts of another Roman acqueduct. | The Circus Maximus, in a great hollow | near the Madrid road, is well preserved. It's dimensions are 1,350x330 feet, The 1 outer walls are of enormous thickness
 and many of the original seats for spec
 tators remain Then there is the nigh | ty reservoir, Fl Lazo de Proserpina, seven miles north of Merida. The gran
 ite wall which dams up the water Is gi- l 6oHtiNs Nitil SldIttdCtS ltdIlilS duNh
 into the huge tank Another reservoir.
 six miles in the opposite direction, is
 called Albuera de Corna1vo. It is much | smaller than the one above mentioned,
 but the arrangement of it's steps, in reg
 ular rows incline antiquarians to the belief that Naumachiae were performed l here.
 | Besides all these these stupendous works of its founders, Merida abounds | in other interesting relics-houSes and | palaces entirely composed of sculptured fragments, exhibiting in their mutilated and diScolOred ornamentation the inimi- table traces of the Roman chisel; gates of stupendous dimensions; highways
 stretching like the roads of the Cam
 pagna, far over plain and mountain; villas, whose alabaster fountains and
 Mosaic pavements reveal the pomp and luxury of their early owners; temples whose shadowy aisles and venerable pill
 lars have been consecrated to the rites
 of four antagonistic religions-all ghost
 ly souvenirs of the mighty power now
 vanished from the earth. You may vis-
 1t the half-Roman. half-Moorish palace
 which formerly belonged to the Duke de
 la Roca, noted dplomate of the reign
 of Philip ". It is perfect museum of
 architectural varietles-Corinthian Ro-
 man, Gothic, Ionic. Moorish and mod
 ern It's entrance doorway Is beauti-
 full specimen of Gothic art but it's Ro-
 man portion has been degraded into a stable. In another obscure street is the
 once superb palace of the Condo de los
 Corvos. with its colonnades of futed
 granite and graceful Corinthian capi-
 tals. The building was constructed en-
 tirely out of the remains of an ancient
 temple dedicated to Diana.
 Then there is the church of Santa Eu- lalia, said to have been built in the fourth century. It has fine Roman esque doorway and chapels of the same date a the end of the aisles, with many singular capitals buried in whitewash In front of the church stands Fl Horui- to, "the little oven" in which-so some authorities declair-the good chlld-mar- tyr was baked. It was converted into q chapel in 1912, and is most interesting with its Roman decorations-the pillar of Saint EulaIia being made up of an cient capitals and scraps of heather al- tars piled one above another
 Merida's Acazar, built by the Moors about the year S33, is in excellent pres ervation. The old church of Santa Ma ria, With it's rich plateresque arch, Is well worth visit and so is the little provincial museum, the Vega de Qua diana. the sixteenth century Plaza May or, and many other places which keep | the travellers interest enchained for weeks. Various short trips in Estrama- dura province should by no means be | neglected. for example: there Is Alcan- l tara, a village on the Tagus river, sixty | miles northwest of Merida. The dusty | trip usually made on mule-back is very | but what globe-trotter would | on that account forego seeing the old | of the military monks of AL cantara, an order which, like those of | and Calatrava, was instituted in the early days of the Castilian mon- archy to protect the frontier against the infidel? Their monastery, an immense half-castle, half -barrack, has fallen into ruin, notwithstanding the al- most incredible strength and extent of it's walls. A Roman bridge in the vicn- ity, said to be the most superb work of | its kind now in existence, measures 670 feet in length and rises 210 feet above the water. The enormous granite blocks composing it--many of them ten feet long by three feet thick--are won 1erfully jointed without the aid of mor- tar. Can you imagine the feeling of awe and admiration which this atupen- dous work, which has been in use near y eighteen hundred years, inspires in the breast of wanderer from the in 'ant land of the Stars and Stripes? amid a wilderness of rocks. yorges and treeless hills, it bursts sud 1enly upon the view in all the majesty ,f it's solitary grandeur, It's colossal arches as sound to-day as when they echoed to the measured tread of the Ro- nan legions., Over this broad causeway nave passed the eagles of the emperor, he struggling hordes of invading Goths, he armies of Roderick and Musa the iacrilegious booty wrested by the Moor rom the churches of Gaficia the trium- 0hant chivalry of Castle and Leon re- turning from the conquest and devasta- ion of fair Grenada.
 Another excursion of less magnitude nay be made to the sierra de las Vibo- as--if you dare to risk the snakes and eptiles of every sort with which those { abound-to say nothing of ascally brigands, and very real and , peril in this part of Spain. , lou will of course make it in the sad , He. following the Sin1I0l1s ha nI1s pf tho ,