A NEW NATIONAL PARK 



215 



knows Spain who has not taken a stage 

 ride over its breezy plains and aromatic 

 hillsides. The ride from San Fernando, 

 near Cadiz, to Algeciras, across the bay 

 from Gibraltar, is a fascinating experi- 

 ence. Relays of four or five horses rush 

 the coach along over good roads at a 

 steady trot, below Moorish wind-mills, 

 past ruined castles, and beside wide 

 marshes, where storks, cranes, herons, 

 flamingoes, and wild fowl watch its 

 progress. Everywhere the perfumed 

 breeze pursues it, under the brilliant blue 

 of the southern heaven. Now it skirts 

 the seashore, looking over the strait to 

 the forbidding African mountains ; now 

 it toils up bleak hillsides, brilliant with 

 the yellow of the fragrant broom. 

 "Pepe," the driver, handles the clothes- 

 line reins for all the 60 miles ; his posti- 

 lion occasionally hurls a stone artistically 

 at one of the leaders, to bring him to 

 reason ; but in general Pepe drives with 

 his voice, bestowing encouragement and 

 malediction at the top of his lungs upon 

 each of the horses by name; and better 

 driving it would be hard to find. 



At the relay stations, a half dozen in 

 number, there are waits of 20 or 30 

 minutes, in which one can stroll about, 

 watch the larks and countless other song- 

 sters, and pick the tiny blue irises and 

 other charming wild flowers. As the 

 coach carries the mails, it is constantly 

 accompanied by one or more civil guards, 

 as the Spanish gendarmes are called. In 



their striking hats, they are remarkable 

 figures, especially in combination "with 

 the herdsboy, whose sheep and goats are 

 browsing under the olive trees. 



This ride has an added charm in its 

 historical associations. Within a mile or 

 two of the road are the battle-fields of 

 the Salado, where the Visigoths van- 

 quished the Vandals, in 417, and drove 

 them over to Africa, and where, also, in 

 1340, Alfonso XI defeated the Moors,. 

 in the first battle in Europe, it is said,. 

 in which Damascus cannon were used. 

 Near by is the Laguna de Janda, where^ 

 in 711, the great battle began in which 

 the Moors won Spain from Roderick 

 and his Visigoths. One of the stops is 

 the picturesque city of Tarifa, where 

 Guzman el Bueno saw his own son slain 

 before his eyes rather than give up the 

 castle to a traitor ; and from Tarifa's 

 Alcazar one can see Trafalgar, ofi which 

 England won the empire of the seas. 

 As the stage, after passing the Moorish 

 aqueduct, draws up at Algeciras in the 

 early evening, the search-lights from "the 

 Rock" remind one again of the conse- 

 quences of that battle. 



"Quien dice Espafia, dice todo" — he 

 who says Spain, says all. And, indeed, 

 Spain has everything, from snow-clad 

 peak and wind-swept mesa to fragrant 

 orange groves and waving palm trees. If 

 the traveler comes to her to learn, she 

 sends him away richly rewarded, and her 

 austere charm will surely draw him back. 



A NEW NATIONAL PARK 



By Guy Elliott Mitchell, U. S. Geological Survey 



THE nation that leads the world in 

 feverish business activity requires 

 playgrounds as well as workshops, 

 says George Otis Smith, which is but an 

 application to America of the old saw 

 that all work and no play makes of Jack 

 a dull boy. When Secretary Seward was 

 endeavoring to enlist the support of the 

 people for his project to purchase Alaska 

 one of the somewhat aesthetic arguments 



by which he sought to gain advocates 

 was that this great northwestern terri- 

 tory should be acquired if for nothing 

 else than that it would afford a magnifi- 

 cent summer playground for the Ameri- 

 can nation. Alaska's purchase is doubt- 

 less justified on this score alone, and, 

 while its varied topography affords ^ in 

 truth a wonderful field to the tourist, 

 there are much more readily accessible 



