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82 DAYS IN THE SUN
among cities for its streets and its bustle of people, its
Alhambra and its natural beauties. There is Loja,
six miles to the southwest, Alhama, Antequera—curi-
ous Moorish cities blessed by nature. And a little to
the south there is again the Sierra de Ronda, through
which we are now passing, a disjointed region which in-
creases in majesty and wildness until it reaches its
culmination in the vicinity of the city of Ronda.
Ronda lies in the midst of a great rocky plateau, on
a dome-like mountain top cloven in twain by a deep
cut. A great arched bridge spans the top of the
crevice, connecting the two sections of the city in its
bold leap. Looking down from the bridge, you gaze
into an awful depth with the Guadiaro foaming at its
bottom, dashing over the rocks like disheveled floods
of hair. A moist coolness comes up to you, and occa-
sionally a slight mist of spray refreshes your face.
There is a rare view from the promenade which
passes all around the city. Up and down the hills
there are strings of olive-groves and vineyards, broken
by wheat-fields and orange-groves, or by cliffs of naked
coral-red and hyacinth-blue. A circle of mighty hills
envelops the horizon like a frame.
We are obliged to hurry and content ourselves with
a cursory view of the city, but each detail of my visit
six years before is made to live again. No region or
people in Spain ever made so full and strange an im-
pression on me as this.
I had come in August and September. At that sea-
son, every fruit market in Andalusia affords a beauti-
ful and varied sight; but Ronda’s market-halls excel
them all in their abundance, in fragrance, and in fruits
curved tense with bursting juices. It seemed as if every
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