TOLEDO 
By John Moi.itor 
With Illustrations from Sketches by the Author 
A NOTHER generation and man with his railway 
congresses may make the world a neighborhood! 
A great thing, no doubt, for man’s practical needs; 
but where then will be the romance of travel in for¬ 
eign lands, where then the veil of mystery that beauti¬ 
fies the distant landscape ? Even now we are a 
little wearied by the flock of sheep that follow the 
line of the railroad. 
But not yet has the charm all gone. There is 
one countr}' to which our thoughts turn in the same 
spirit of enjoyment with which we read Irving’s 
Alhambra in our youthful days. There the morning 
mist has not quite dried in the garish day of pub¬ 
licity. It is good to dwell upon the days I spent in 
Spain as a travelling student—having six of these 
precious days in which to study Toledo, that uniquely 
picturesque city enthroned upon the rocks, twenty- 
four hundred feet above the sea. 
At its feet the river Eagus surges through a chasm 
in the granite hills, almost completely girdling the 
city. Erom the plain below one sees nothing hut 
walls and towers; the houses are hidden, the aspect 
of the city is steep, hare, shaggy—not a human being 
to be seen. 
From the railroad station to the city is a steep 
ascent. This my travelling companion and I made 
on top of a coach drawn by six mules. Driven with 
amazing speed, the cries of the driver and his crack¬ 
ing whip, with the lurching of the vehicle over the 
stony road, made us feel as though we were taking 
Toledo by storm, with a mediaeval flavor to the ad¬ 
venture. Crossing the famous bridge of Alcantara, 
with its Moorish tower, we saw on all sides high stone 
walls and precipitous rocks: half way up the road 
passes through the beautiful Puerta del Sol, tbe 
Gateway of the Sun, built by the Moors when 
VIEW OF THE TERRACED HOUSES AS ONE ENTERS THE CITY 
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