230 Unexplored Spain 



All this may explain superficially the existing desolation. 

 The essential causes, however, are, we believe, (1) barrenness of 

 soil ; and (2) an enervating climate, fever-infected by stagnant 

 waters, dead pools, and ubiquitous shallow swamps that j^oison 

 the air and produce mosquitoes in millions. 



Gazing in reflective mood upon those magnificent memorials 

 of Roman rule at Merida, one is tempted to wonder whether, 

 after all, the silent ruins (with a stork's nest on each parapet) do 

 not yet point the true way to Estremenian prosperity — irrigation 

 (plus energy — a quality one misses in Estremadura). 



Tkujtllo 



Founded 2000 years back (by Augustus Caesar), this out-of- 

 the-world city has a knack of periodically dropping out of history 

 — skipping a few^ centuries at a time — meanwhile presumably 

 dragging on its own dreamy unrecorded existence, " by the world 

 forgot," till some fresli incident forces it on the stage once more. 

 There were stirring times here while, for near a thousand years, 

 the upland vega:^ were swept and ravaged by three successive 

 waves of foreign invasion. Then Trujillo relapsed into trance, 

 skipped the middle ages, and awoke to find at its gates another 

 foreion foe — this time the French. 



And the city reflects these vicissitudes. The Roman fortress, 

 magnificent in extent and military strength, completely covers 

 the rugged granite heights, imposing still in crumbling ruin. 

 Forty-foot ramparts with inner and outer defences, bastions and 

 flanking towers, machicolated and pierced for arrow^ fire, crown 

 the whole circuit of the koppie. Signs of ancient grandeur 

 everywhere meet one's eye ; but contrasts pain at every turn. 

 For filthy swine to-day defile palaces ; donkeys are stalled in 

 sculptured j^^ttios whence armoured knight on Arab steed once 

 rode forth to clatter along the stone-paved ravelins that led to 

 the point of danger. From mullioned embrasures above, whence 

 the Euterpes and Lalages of old waved tender adieux, now peer 

 slatternly peasants ; crumbling battlements form homes for white 

 owls and bats, kestrels, hoopoes, and a multitude of storks such 

 as can nowhere else be seen congregated in a single city. The 

 sense of desolation is accentuated by finding such feathered 

 recluses as blue rock- thrush and blackchat actually nesting in the 

 very citadel itself. 



