Its very ruin and decay makes it only more precious to the traveller.
There are here none of the modern and commonplace evidences of life and
activity that shock the artistic sense in other towns. All is old,
moribund, and picturesque. It lies here in the heart of the Guadarramas,
lost and forgotten by the civilization of the age, muttering in its
senile dream of the glories of an older world. It has not vitality
enough to attract a railroad, and so is only reached by a long and
tiresome journey by diligence. Its solitude is rarely intruded upon by
the impertinent curious, and the red back of Murray is a rare apparition
in its winding streets.
Yet those who come are richly repaid. One does not quickly forget the
impression produced by the first view of the vast aqueduct, as you drive
into the town from La Granja. It comes upon you in an instant,--the two
great ranges of superimposed arches, over one hundred feet high,
spanning the ravine-like suburb from the outer hills to the Alcazar. You
raise your eyes from the market-place, with its dickering crowd, from
the old and squalid houses clustered like shot rubbish at the foot of
the chasm, to this grand and soaring wonder of utilitarian architecture,
with something of a fancy that it was never made, that it has stood
there since the morning of the world. It has the lightness and the
strength, the absence of ornament and the essential beauty, the vastness
and the perfection, of a work of nature.
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