_TOLEDO_.

VIEW OF THE REMAINS OF A MOORISH FORTRESS ON THE RIVER.

THE situation of Toledo is most romantic, and presents as many charms
from its beauty to the architect, as the site for a commanding city, as
no doubt it offered from, its great natural strength, to the "man of
war" who must needs have regarded it as an almost heaven-born fortress.
It owes much, both of its beauty and its strength, to the clear and
abundant current of the Tagus, which more than half surrounds it. This
river has, as we shall have occasion to observe, been nobly spanned by
Roman, Moor, and Christian; and on its banks are yet traceable, in
architectural fragments, the handiwork of each of those races.

Our sketch represents a passage of this river which has once been
commanded by the Moorish fortress, above the "tapia" or concrete remains
of which, some shade-loving Spaniard of to-day has planted his vines and
gourds, and reared his modest, but neither unpicturesque nor altogether
uncomfortable, tenement. A fortification of this kind was much affected
by the Moors for salient points, on account of the command it gave them
of the various directions from which attack might be apprehended, and
was called by them "Almodovar."

Charles Didier has admirably described the charms of such a position, as
that occupied by the world-renowned capital of New Castille, in the
following passage of his "Annee en Espagne," "Tolede doit a sa
situation," says he,[21] "une inepuisable richesse de sites et de vues.
La montagne escarpee dont elle couvre les flancs est separee par le Tage
d'une autre montagne non moins escarpee, mais nue, deserte, abandonnee a
la sterilite et tombant a pic dans le fleuve. A micote est le chateau
ruine de Saint Cervantes. Un petit ermitage, _la Virgen del Valle_, est
egare au sommet; mais, bati au milieu des rochers, il s'en detache a
peine et se confond avec eux: des troupeaux de chevres sauvages errent a
l'entour, et, presque aussi sauvage qu'elles, le patre, vetu de peaux,
apporte au seuil de la ville les moeurs de la sierra. Ces contrastes
sont frappants, mais ce sont les vues surtout qui captivent; quoique
borne, le spectacle est varie; les masses granitiques dont la montagne
est formee s'adoucissent au-dessus du pont Saint Martin, et des villas,
appelees dans le pays _cigarrales_, etendent sur la pierre nue et
grisatre de frais tapis de verdure; c'est le seul point champetre du
paysage, tout le reste est sec et depouil