, long as a woman's, and His body thin and all discoloured: from the
wounds thick blood poured out, and their edges were swollen and red; the
broken knees, the feet and hands, were purple and green with the
beginning of putrefaction.

III

[Sidenote: Ronda]

Ronda is set deep among the mountains between Algeciras and Seville;
they hem it in on all sides, and it straggles up and down little hills,
timidly, as though its presence were an affront to the wild rocks around
it. The houses are huddled against the churches, which look like portly
hens squatting with ruffled feathers, while their chicks, for warmth,
press up against them. It is very cold in Ronda. I saw it first quite
early: over the town hung a grey mist shining in the sunlight, and the
mountains, opalescent in the morning glow, were so luminous that they
seemed hardly solid; they looked as if one could walk through them. The
people, covering their mouths in dread of a _pulmonia_, hastened by,
closely muffled in long cloaks. As I passed the open doors I saw them
standing round the _brasero_, warming themselves; for fireplaces are
unknown to Andalusia, the only means of heat being the _copa_, a round
brass dish in which is placed burning charcoal.

The height and the cold give Ronda a character which reminds one of
Northern Spain; the roofs are quite steep, the houses low and small,
built for warmth rather than, as in the rest of Andalusia, for
coolness.

But the whitewash and the barred windows with their wooden lattice-work,
remind you that you are in Moorish country, in the very heart of it; and
Ronda, indeed, figures in chronicles and in old ballads as a stronghold
of the invaders. The temperature affects the habits of the people, even
their appearance: there is no lounging about the squares or at the doors
of wine-shops, the streets are deserted and their great breadth makes
the emptiness more apparent. The first setters out of the town had no
need to make the ways narrow for the sake of shade, and they are, in
fact, so broad that the houses on either side might be laid on their
faces, and there would still be room for the rapid stream which hurries
down the middle.

The conformation of a Spanish town, even though it lack museums and fine
buildings, gives it an interest beyond that of most European places. The
Moorish design is always evident. That wise people laid out the streets
as was most convenient, tortuous and narrow at Cordova or broa