A Ruined City 



lead, selecting the most turbulent places in the surface as 

 the safest ; for, as another great navigator says, — • 



" Passions are likened best to floods and streams, 

 The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb ; " ' 



and we met with no worse accident than wetting our feet, 

 and the bottoms of our saddle-bags. 



By the side of the sea, between Estepona and Marbella, 

 we rode among the ruins of an ancient town, — whether of 

 the Romans or the Moors, we could not say ; perhaps a little 

 of both. Nevertheless, our want of antiquarian erudition 

 did not prevent us moralising on the old masses of grey 

 masonry, which the excellent grouting-cement of other days 

 still holds together in grotesque forms of dilapidation, while 

 around them and among them branch and bloom the shrubs 

 of the dehesa. 



" Where now the wilderness is silent, save to the rustle 

 of the pabnita stem, the hum of bees and the sailing sea- 

 bird's scream, there were noisy streets, and bustling market- 

 places, and columned angles of public buildings, at which 

 hook-nosed, hawk-eyed Romans discussed the lately arrived 

 proconsul. Or here arose the mosque, and shrill muezzins 

 called the faithful to prayer, and kneeling Moslems muttered 

 and bobbed their turbaned heads to the carpeted level of 

 their slipperless feet. 



Now, whatever it may have been, the place is deserted ; 

 not a habitation of man within miles of it. The wreck of 

 ages reminded us of the wreck we saw on the other side of 

 Estepona. 



Entering Marbella, and inquiring for the Posada de la 

 Corona^ we were directed this way and that way by inter- 



' Sir Walter Raleigh. 

 205 



