But Though Enriched By All These Legacies Of An Immemorial Past, There
Seems No Hope, No Future For Segovia.
It is as dead as the cities of the
Plain.
Its spindles have rusted into silence. Its gay company is gone.
Its streets are too large for the population, and yet they swarm with
beggars. I had often heard it compared in outline to a ship, - the
sunrise astern and the prow pointing westward, - and as we drove away
that day and I looked back to the receding town, it seemed to me like a
grand hulk of some richly laden galleon, aground on the rock that holds
it, alone, abandoned to its fate among the barren billows of the
tumbling ridges, its crew tired out with struggling and apathetic in
despair, mocked by the finest air and the clearest sunshine that ever
shone, and gazing always forward to the new world and the new times
hidden in the rosy sunset, which they shall never see.
THE CITY OF THE VISIGOTHS
Emilio Castelar said to me one day, "Toledo is the most remarkable city
in Spain. You will find there three strata of glories, - Gothic, Arab,
and Castilian, - and an upper crust of beggars and silence."
I went there in the pleasantest time of the year, the first days of
June. The early harvest was in progress, and the sunny road ran through
golden fields which were enlivened by the reapers gathering in their
grain with shining sickles. The borders of the Tagus were so cool and
fresh that it was hard to believe one was in the arid land of Castile.
From Madrid to Aranjuez you meet the usual landscapes of dun hillocks
and pale-blue vegetation, such as are only seen in nature in Central
Spain, and only seen in art on the matchless canvas of Velazquez.
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