Why There Should Ever
Have Been A Town Built There In The Prehistoric Beginning, Except That
The Rock Was So
Impossible to take, and why it should have therefore
been taken by that series of invaders who pervaded all Spain
- By the
Phoenicians, by the Carthaginians, by the Romans, by the Goths, by the
Moors, by the Christians, and after many centuries by the French, and
finally by the Spaniards again - it would not be easy to say. Among its
many conquerors, the Moors left their impress upon it, though here as
often as elsewhere in Spain their impress is sometimes merely a
decoration of earlier Roman work. There remains a Roman bridge which the
Moors did not make over into the likeness of their architecture, but
built a bridge of their own which also remains and may be seen from the
magnificent structure with which the Spaniards have arched the abyss
where the river rushes writhing and foaming through the gorge three
hundred feet below. There on the steps that lead from the brink, the eye
of pity may still see the files of Christian captives bringing water up
to their Moslem masters; but as one cannot help them now, even by the
wildest throe, it is as well to give a vain regret to the architect of
the Spanish bridge, who fell to his death from its parapet, and then
push on to the market hard by.
II
You have probably come to see that market because you have read in your
guide-books that the region round about Ronda is one of the richest in
Spain for grapes and peaches and medlars and melons and other fruits
whose names melt in the mouth.
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