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 poison 
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). 
TRUJILLO 
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 fresh incident forces it on the stage once more. 
There were stirring times here while, for near a thousand years, 
the upland vegas 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 
foreign 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 patios 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 Lalagés 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. 
