Daybreak in Spain; Or, Sketches of Spain and Its New Reformation (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 Excerpt: ...the East there is a finer specimen of architecture to be seen; certainly in Spain Toledo stands without a rival. At its feet thunders the Tagus, sweeping round the city, through savage gorges and frowning rocks, as grand and romantic as almost anything which the Scottish highlands can boast. And then aloft, in the clear brilliant sky, on a. pedestal of hills, are Moorish castles, battlements, and gateways; and mingled with them are the, aspiring roofs and towers of cathedrals and convents, and in the midst, eclipsing them all by its. inimitable grace, is the Alcazar. But the moment we enter. Toledo the spell is dissolved, or rather it is continued in another form. There is a weird look about the place. You see scarcely anybody in the narrow silent street, and those you do meet look so very old. For anything you can tell from their dress and faces they may. have been born about the time those edifices were erected, and have lived here all the while. They seem not to belong to the present generation at all, or to have any relations with the world that now is; but to be a little colony of the fourteenth century, preserved by some strange talismanic influence till now. We thought of Tadmor in the. desert; and of Thebes amid the sands of Egypt, with its silent temples and tombs, and its mummies vivified, and set a-walking in its streets. The whole thing--Moorish edifices, inhabitants and all--ought to be put under a glass case, and preserved as a curiosity; and, certainly, although Toledo were to be so dealt with, its isolation could hardly be greater, nor its disseverment from the modern world more complete. We left it at eventide. A lovelier evening we never beheld. The sky was one mass of gold, and its rich light falling on the naked hills, and on the old Moo...