shone between them, it neither dried me nor warmed me, and the cold wind chilled me to the bone. There was nothing to eat; there was nothing to drink; there was not a sou! upon the road, which I could see for miles ahead. Fainting, blinded, wet, and famished, after about six hours of incessant shoving, I reached the foot of the hill upon which Arahal stands, white and shining. Had there been a trap to cart my machine, or a boy to shove it, or any place to leave it, I should not have struggled a foot farther. But not a soul did I see until I was well in the town, and there the first person saved my life. He was a small boy with a basket of oranges. Whether they were for sale I do not know. But I grabbed three and devoured them on the spot. By that time the intelligence of my arrival had been communicated to the Alcayde, who, if he did not come himself, sent an emissary in the shape of a policeman to arrest me. The moment he saw me, however, he was convinced of my total harmlessness and speechlessness. I do not remember ever having been so awfully done up in my life. But though half the town accompanied me to the inn, I had no trouble then, or ever afterward, from Spanish officials, whom I have always found to be courteously polite, when not absolutely indifferent. The landlord and I had our dinner in solemn state. A tremendous conference was held in the evening as to my next day's route, for throughout this part of Spain the roads are quite new, and no one would think of attempting such a cross-country trip without a map, and this is not to be obtained. Every one advised me to get up at midnight and take the railway. Still, I was off on my bicycle pretty early the next morning, after eating-I cannot say drinking-my chocolate; this time with a large bag of oranges and bread among my luggage.

By noon I had got to Puebla le Cazalla. Here I again tried the inn. Opening on the street was a great room like a crypt. All around the muleteers and the carters were sleeping through the midday heat, for it was getting hot, or eating from a great bowl with their fingers and knives. Tired, for the

wind had kept on blowing, I sat down in the cool, part stable, part dining-hall, part bedroom, and fell asleep, only to be wakened and to find on the stone table a beautifully clean cloth, the coldest and freshest of water, the strongest of wine, and the most delicious fruit, only to be asked to take my lunch in company with three or four rather too sociable people, who may have been Dons, but I think were commercials; to be given an excellent breakfast of an omelet, garbanzos, a fish salad, some cutlets, and the wonderful gaspacho, which is like nothing outside of Spain-and all for about a shilling.

But after this little town, dominated by its mosque and its minaret even today, the road ended, and thence, almost to Osuna, I followed the mule track. It might have been excellent riding-it was hard enough and broad enough-if only mules in these Spanish tablelands did not like going up and down-stairs. About every hundred yards there was a wash-out or a driedup stream, which the long train of mules, in their gay trappings with their single driver away behind, seemed to enjoy plunging into, but such a road is not suited for cycling. Every one else who has cycled in Spain, though no one apparently had ever been over this trail-and until the road is finished I should advise no one to gotells of frightful encounters with the maddened drivers of frightened mules. For my part, while I did scare the mules, I found their drivers, whom I once or twice upset, far better mannered than those of London.

The next day from Osuna I again followed the trail. It was simply unridable. It is true I might and should have taken the train, only there was none that day. By noon I had crossed the great plain which stretches from Seville to the mountains of Ronda, and was on the good road, just made, at La Roda, near Bobadilla, the station famous for its restaurant, where no one ever has time to breakfast-only to pay for it. Now I was really coming to the finest part of my ride.

The great plain I had crossed was a wilderness. It always has been a wilderness, the fighting-ground of old Ali

Atar, of the Caliph of Cordova, of St. Ferdinand of Seville, and of all the real and mythical heroes of this wonderful country. In the spring it blossoms with roses, and the skies are most glorious; but still it is a stern, melancholy land, bounded with rugged mountains, "a long, sweeping plain destitute of trees and indescribably silent and lonesome. What adds to this silence and loneliness is the absence of singing birds. Yet its scenery is noble in its serenity, and possesses in some degree the solemn grandeur of the ocean." And it is rarely that one sees even a straggling herd of cattle or "a long train of mules slowly moving along the waste, like camels in the desert. As you approach the kingdom of Granada you enter upon another wilderness-a wilderness of mountains -grand and snow-crowned. At their foot lies Antiquera, where I stopped on my third night. The railway now runs through this town to Granada, but it is still out of the track of travel, and the inroad of the tourist has little effect on the people. The landscape is as strange and silent as they are. Beyond Antiquera huge rocks, like the Rock of the Lovers, spring upward, while each of the lower summits is even now crowned with its Moorish watchtower, or fortress. The towns themselves are all but inaccessible, and it was the hardest work to shove up the long hill. to Archidona. Once I had got up, my coming was noised abroad, and I was received as the honored guest of the Bicycle Club, which turned out and paraded me in great style, to their great delight, through the main street. I imagine its members never go out of their town, and they warned me I would have a terrible ride, so they had heard, to Loja. The whole way lies through the mountains, and finally brings one through a steep and narrow defile, the Pass of the King, over which Ferdinand led his army against Boabdil. Here I came upon the great highroad from Malaga to Madrid, and all at once the wildly picturesque Loja rose into view. Above it towered the barren mountains, below was the great vega, or valley, the plain of Granada, the most fruitful part of Spain. Away in the distance I saw the Sierra Nevada,

its summits looking more like silver than snow in the shimmering land

scape.

Surely now, I thought, from here all will be easy riding. For this was the Moorish Paradise, the Promised Land which Ferdinand had conquered, the one bit of Spain that remains prosperous and happy.

The next morning I started briskly over a splendid road. over a splendid road. I had journeyed into another land. There were palmtrees in the valley and great fields of sugar-cane ready for cutting. Up on the hills were little towns, each with a history of its own. Suddenly as I bowled along I noticed some trees growing in the road, a dense wood really. A straggling track went down to the swift-flowing Zenil, which I had been following, and then I saw that years before the bridge had broken. There it lay, blocking the river. Nobody had attempted to mend it. I took off my shoes and stockings and commenced to wade. I had not gone two steps when the bicycle sank out of sight. If I had not had a good grip on it I never would have seen it again. There was nothing to do but to go back to shore, take off my clothes, feel. round with a stick until I found the ford, and wade over, carrying the machine on my head. I was getting dressed on the other side, a man came up and told me he had seen me, and it was only by the grace of God I had not been drowned." After that the road was sometimes used by the farmers as an irrigating canal when it was lower than the fields, and sometimes as a dyke when it was high

er.

66

The mules which travelled it did not seem to mind, but I did. Still, I finally bumped and struggled into Sante. Fé, the city built by Ferdinand and Isabella when they were besieging Granada; to-day a miserable village without a sign of its former greatness, but at one time the military, if temporary, metropolis of Spain. from here that Ferdinand and Isabella directed the movements of their army; it was from its watch-towers they could see their reinforcements coming from Jaen in the north, or the Moors chasing the faint-hearted foreign allies through the pass of Lope. It was from Santa Fé that Columbus, wearied and

discouraged in his attempt to prove to Isabella that the New World was worth finding, set out, broken-hearted, to hunt for a more sympathetic sovereign. It was from here were sent the messengers who overtook him at the white bridge at Puente Pinos, on the left, and brought him back, and made Spain into that Power the remnants of which to-day are dragging her to her death.

Every writer who has travelled this road tells you of the glory and splendor of Granada as it is first revealed from Santa Fé. But from no point, save one, is the approach to the city impressive. For it is built low down at the foot of the mountains, and the fortress is hidden among them. It may be that at one time the Alhambra and the great mosque were covered with shining tiles and with glittering crescents. But to-day the fortress looks like, and is almost indistinguishable from, the spur of the hills behind it, and the city is swallowed up in its gardens, which flourish while it de

cays.

From Granada, which I entered by the great gate of Elvira, I made endless excursions around the great plain and into the neighboring mountains: to Jaen, to Almeria, to Alcalà, to Lucena, and then finally to Malaga, along the coast to Motril and back to Granada All these little journeys gave me, or would have given me, continuous pleasure and incessant delight but for the wretched bicycle that broke down on every occasion I tried to ride it.

Though not my last ride, the most interesting was that to Malaga. Starting from the groves of the Alhambra and leaving the town by the gate of the Zenil-this river, a month later than when I waded through it, being almost dry-I passed, at the end of the Alameda, the little chapel which marks the downfall of Moorish rule in Spain and records the commencement of the short hundred years of Spanish prosperity. It is but a tiny whitewashed building by the roadside; it is almost bare within; it has none of the lavish richness that surrounds the tomb of the great sovereigns; and it is all the more suggestive because of the neglect into which it has fallen. In the wall there is a little plaque which tells how

at this spot Boabdil, on the fateful January 2d, 1492, gave up the keys of his palace-fortress, and with them Moorish dominion, to the Catholic sovereigns, and destroyed a kingdom which had lasted for a thousand years. One hears of the Spanish peasant's love of history, which has been handed down through the ages in song, but there is little evidence that he cares for the traditions of his country or that they are more to him, if he even knows them, than empty words. The chapel is closed and locked, and the tablet is a mark for the passing muleteers to shy stones at and cast filth upon, just as the Alhambra is turned over to the photographer, and the vulgar tourist, and the restoring curator, who peddles toys and antiquities to gullible trippers and British Prime Ministers, and who allowed it to burn owing to his unpardonable carelessness. It is like this everywhere throughout the country. The monuments and palaces of Spain are the abodes of beggars, and its churches the spoil of thieves and the seats of money-lenders. From this chapel, looking back-as Boabdil the Unlucky looked for the last time-one does see, though decayed and blasted and riven, the mighty towers of the Alhambra striding over the mountain. summits, the fortress palace which has been the spoil of every army that has invaded Spain in the past, and which may-who knows how soon?-be the prey of still another. Who knows how long it will be before the flag of the country of Columbus floats from those very towers? But from beyond the lovely oasis, beyond the mass of dense cypresses lit up by glowing oleanders, there stretches to the mountains of Alhama a sandy desert that might again, as it once did, blossom as the rose. And across this desert, through deep sand and mud, I pushed my useless bicycle. I climbed and coasted the steepest of mountains and waded the most rapid of bridgeless rivers, and at length toiled up to the pitiful, almost deserted, earthquake-rent Alhama, a city of woe and desolation, once the strongest outpost and the greatest enemy of Spaniard and Moor in turn. A splendid road leads back again to Loja, and thence onward, a marvellous

feat of engineering, to Malaga, through an absolute wilderness.

In the whole distance there is but one solitary village and a single inn. The road springs thousands of feet up from one mountain top to another, for the country all the way is riven and twisted into the deepest and darkest of narrow valleys, dominated by almost inaccessible heights. Finally, after a long ride of almost fifty miles without a stop, for there was no place to stop save a solitary inn, I wheeled out of that most terrible of wildernesses, in which the pride of Spanish chivalry in 1483 suffered a deadly defeat at the hands of El Zagal, the Moorish commander of Malaga. The Spaniards must have come by almost this very route. They marched all day and night through the passes of the mountains. Their way was often along the bottom of a rocky valley or the dry bed of a torrent, cut deep in the Sierras and filled with shattered fragments of rock. These roads, says Irving, were often only dried-up streams, and were overhung by numerous cliffs and precipices. As the sun went down on the second day, the army came through a lofty pass of the mountains, and saw below them, as I did at the same hour, a distant glimpse of a part of the fair valley of Malaga bounded by the blue Mediterranean. As night closed in they found themselves in a confused chain of little valleys, imbedded in these rocky heights, known by the name of the Axarquia. At length they came to the edge of the mountain, down which the road now climbs, completely broken up by barrancos and ramblas, of vast depth, and shagged with rocks and precipices. It was immpossible to maintain the order of march. The horses had no room for action and were scarcely manageable, having to scramble from rock to rock and up and down frightful declivities, where was scarce footing for a mountain goat. The Moors, who had taken up their position in the watch-towers, shouted when they looked down on the army, struggling and stumbling among the rocks. Sallying from their towers, they took possession of the cliffs that overhung the ravines, and hurled darts and stones upon the Spaniards, who

fell without the means of resistance. The confusion of the Christians was increased by the shouts of the Moors, multiplied by the echoes of every crag and cliff, as if they were surrounded by innumerable foes. Being entirely ignorant of the country, in their struggle to extricate themselves, they plunged into other glens and defiles, where they were still more exposed to danger. The guides, who were ordered to lead the way out of this place of carnage, either through terror or confusion, instead of conducting them out of the mountains, led them deeper into the fatal recesses. All day they made ineffectual attempts to extricate themselves. Finally, the Spanish leaders, the Marquis of Cadiz and Don Alonzo de Aguilar, with a mere handful of their followers, alone were left, and even this fragment of a Spanish army was scattered. Some wandered for, days in the dismal valleys, and a few finally returned to Loja and Antiquera. But most perished miserably among the mountains. These mountains are still held by the descendants of the Moors, and an enemy's army which attempted to enter Spain from Malaga might suffer at the hands of the rude mountaineers a still worse, a more overwhelming defeat. The minute one leaves the fertile, tropical sea coast of this part of Spain to gain the interior, one finds one's self in a pathless Alpine wilder

ness.

From the summit of the mountains the road zigzags down to Malaga; thence to Velez-Malaga and Nerja there is a road as well constructed and as delightful to travel over as the Cornice. At Nerja it ends, and at Almunecar a boat, with three or four stout oarsmen, must be taken. A splendid road runs onward to Salobrena, with its great coast castle, and, as I passed this seaside fortress palace of the Moors, today peopled, as are all Spain's finest monuments, by the poorest of the poor, I saw suddenly, unexpectedly, for the first and the last time, the Spaniard at work. Before the unfortunate Cuban business, the magnificent road, high upon the mountains, had been planned and partly carried out, to skirt the whole Mediterranean shore; but now the enterprise has been quite aban

doned, now the money and the men are wasted in that endless struggle. Yet here the tracks into which the road degenerates were crammed and jammed with mules, and donkeys, and horses, and oxen and men, carrying the ripe sugar-cane. From the great fields they came, loaded, to the huge smoking factories, and returned again for fresh loads, in an endless procession, a solid mass of men and beasts, which one could only fall in with, smothered at one moment in dust, at the next sinking deep in the mire. Through the widest of the fields a great river flowed; there was no bridge, and there never had been one. The horses waded, and I and the machine were seized upon by an army of unemployed, who fought to carry me over. The heat was awful. The dust was worse. The yells of the drivers, the smell of sugar-cane, and the braying of donkeys filled the air.

In Motril the crowd was greater. It was like a market-day, only a market which I believe goes on for weeks. Sea captains-whose ships, now that the old Moorish harbor is in ruins and filled up, lay far from shore-planters and merchants from all over the world spoke a babel of tongues in the corridor of a big hotel, which replaced the usual little inn. There may be other cities of Spain filled with the same life and go, the same vitality, but I have never seen them. And what was the I soon found that this energy was something new in the kingdom of Granada, something the people had not been accustomed to for the last three hundred years. It was easily explained. It did not take long to learn that the wreck of Cuba was Andalusia's prosperity; that the destruction of the plantations in that Island had made those of the Mediterranean coast; that, as no tobacco was arriving from Havana, equally good could be grown round Motril. It has been said that the Spaniard is too lazy to work and too ignorant; here he was working as no laborer would anywhere else. If the war in Cuba has drained most of the country of its youth and its strength, here, from the youngest to the oldest, every one was as busy and as full of life as in an American town on the boom. And the wish that I

heard on all sides of me, though mainly expressed by foreigners, was that the war in Cuba might go on. For, if it was ruining the rest of the country, it was making the fortune of the sugar-planters and the tobaccogrowers of Andalusia. The whole thing was a practical demonstration that the Spaniard would be a splendid workman if only he had the chance to work, if he was not ground down by a Royal Family which sits upon him, and the German generals and moneygrubbing Jews who have drained his life-blood. It was an object-lesson in Spanish life and character which I shall never forget. As it was only about forty-four miles to Granada, I thought I could easily get there in an afternoon. The road is as well engineered as those in Switzerland, and about as badly kept up. It climbs to the great tablelands through tunnels and by viaducts. One of the bridges over the Tablete is almost as fine as that of the Devil on the St. Gothard; thirty miles of this road, however, were all I could cover between one in the afternoon and eight at night. "bikist" may fail to understand my pace, a little more than four miles an hour, but those who have toured will sympathize. A schoolmaster put me up in his house in a little village by the roadside, and I must say treated me remarkably well. And the next morning I descended to Granada, by way of that Mecca of the tourist to the Alhambra-the Last Sigh of the Moor. I meant to ride much more, but the machine was thoroughly played out. I had meant to stay longer in Granada, but, being kindly relieved of every cent of my money by a pickpocket, I was exported as so much luggage by the British Consul and a hotel proprietor.

Thoroughly experienced tourists would, no doubt, enjoy Andalusia, which, away from the big hotels and their touts, is quite unspoiled. But they must take a strong and reliable machine with them; they must carry extra parts, as there is no chance, save in Malaga, Granada, and Seville, of getting it repaired if anything breaks. They must be prepared to push through from one large town to another, as there is often no place to stop between.