The Picturesque Antiquities of Spain / Described in a series of letters, with illustrations representing Moorish palaces, cathedrals, and other monuments of art, contained in the cities of Burgos, Valladolid, Toledo, and Seville.

by Nathaniel Armstrong Wells

I will not fatigue you by the enumeration of all these remains, of which but a few are remarkable for picturesque qualities, and still fewer for the possession of historical interest, as far as can be known at present. One of them, situated ten miles to the south-east of Toledo, and visible from its immediate neighbourhood, attracts notice owing to its striking position. Occupying the summit of a conical hill, which stands alone on the plain, and placed at four times the elevation of Windsor Castle, you expect to find it connected with the history of some knightly Peveril of the Peak, but learn with surprise that it was the stronghold of the Archbishops of Toledo; and was erected by Don Pedro Tenorio, the same prelate who rebuilt the bridge of San Martin, and repaired the Moorish castle of San Servando.

Before you ascend the peak, you pass through the village of Almonacid, from which the castle takes its name, and which, unlike that more recently erected pile, is completely Arab in aspect. All the houses are entered through back courts, and present no difference of appearance, whether shops, taverns, posadas, or private residences. After tying my horse in the stable of the posada, and giving him his meal of barley, which he had carried in the alforjas (travelling bags) suspended behind the saddle, I took my own provisions out of the opposite receptacle, and established myself before the kitchen fire.

On my asking for wine, the hostess requested I would furnish her with two quartos (one halfpenny) with which she purchased me a pint, at the tavern next door. The host of the posada, who was seated next me, and a friend at the opposite corner of the fire-place, favoured me, during my meal, with their reminiscences of a battle fought here, during the Peninsular war. They had not heard of the English having taken any part in the quarrel, with the exception of the old woman, who recollected perfectly the name of Wellington, and pronounced it as perfectly, but thought he had been a Spanish general. They described the battle as a hard fought one, and won by the French, who marched up the hill with fixed bayonets, as the old host, almost blind, described by assuming the attitude of a soldier jogging up a hill, and dislodged the Spanish garrison from the castle.

I could have willingly passed a week in this village, so exciting are the remains of Arab manners to the curiosity. The name of the place had already raised my expectations, but the blind landlord of the posada unconsciously won my attachment from the first moment. No sooner was I seated, than, leaning towards me, and patting my arm to draw my attention, he pointed to his two eyes. At first I was at a loss to understand him; but soon discovered that he was desirous of knowing whether I was sufficiently versed in the mysteries of Esculapius, to prescribe for the relief of his suffering organs. To this trait he soon added one still more characteristic, by actually speaking of Toledo, by its Moorish appellation Tolaite. Had he worn a turban, sat cross-legged and offered me coffee and a pipe, I should not have been more taken by surprise, than by this Arab expression assailing the ear, in the heart of Spain, ten miles from the town itself, in which the name had probably not been uttered for three or four centuries.

The builder of the castle of Almonacid must have placed more confidence in the difficulties of approach, than in the solidity of his structure. The walls are partly of stone, and partly of tapia, or earth. There only remain, the exterior wall, enclosing an area of about sixty to seventy yards in diameter, and of a pentagonal form; and, in the centre, the keep, a quadrangular tower, somewhat higher than the rest of the buildings. There are no traces of living apartments. At each of the five angles of the outer wall, is a small tower, and others in the centres of some of the fronts; those looking to the west are circular, the rest square. The nearer view of this ruin causes disappointment, as it appears to have been a slovenly and hasty construction: but, at a distance, its effect is highly picturesque.

The castle of Montalban is situated to the south-west of Toledo, at a distance of six Spanish leagues. It resembles, in size and importance, some of the largest English castles; and justifies thus far the tradition preserved here, of its having for a short period, served for a royal prison—Juan the Second being said to have been confined there by his exasperated favourite, Don Alvaro de Luna. This story is not, however, confirmed by historians, several of whom I have vainly consulted, for the purpose of discovering it. Ferreras mentions the castle, or rather the town, which lies at a distance of two leagues (eight miles) from it, as having belonged to the queen of Juan the Second; who, he states, was deprived of it, against her will, in favour of Don Alvaro, and another place given her in exchange. On the confiscation of the favourite's possessions, previous to his decapitation, it reverted to the crown; and there is no further notice taken of it in the history, until the Emperor Charles the Fifth, confers on its then proprietor the title of Count. This personage was Don Alonzo Tellez Giron, third in descent from Juan Pacheco, Duke of Escalona, who had erected Montalban into a separate fief, in favour of one of his sons and his descendants, on the singular condition of the family name undergoing a change, on each successive descent. The alternate lords were to bear the names respectively of Giron and Pacheco. The first Count of Montalban married a daughter of D. Ladron de Guevara, proprietor, à propos of castles, of that of Guevara, in the neighbourhood of Vitoria, constructed in an extremely singular form. The centre tower appears intended to imitate the castles of a chess-board. It is situated on the southern declivity of the chain of mountains, a branch of the Pyrenees, which separates the province of Guipuscoa from those of Navarre and Alava.

On the opposite descent of the chain another fortress existed in remote times. Both were strongholds of robbers, whose descendants derived their family name, Ladron (robber) from their ancestors' profession. In a document signed by D. Garcia Ramirez, King of Navarre in 1135, D. Ladron de Guevara, governor of Alava, figures among the grandees of the kingdom; the descendants were afterwards called lords of Oñate, and the castle is at present the property of the Count de Oñate, a grandee of the first class. From its occupying a point stratégique of considerable importance, commanding the plain of Alava, and the high road as it enters the valley of Borunda, it has been in recent times occupied by the Carlists, and fortified.

Montalban belongs at present to the Count of Fuensalida. It is completely ruinous, but the outer wall is almost entire; and one of two lofty piles of building, in the form of bastions, which flanked the entrance, is in sufficient preservation to allow the apartments to be recognised. Their floors were at a height of about eighty feet from the ground; and the mass of masonry which supported them, is pierced by an immense gothic arch reaching to the rooms. The opposite corresponding mass remains also with its arch; but the upper part which contained rooms, no longer exists. On this, the entrance side, the approach is almost level, and the defence consisted of a narrow and shallow moat; but the three other sides, the fortress being of a quadrangular form, look down into a deep ravine, through which a river, issuing from the left, passes down two sides of the castle, and makes for the valley of the Tagus, which river is seen at a distance of five or six miles.

The precipice at the furthest side descends perpendicularly, and is composed of rocks in the wildest form. The river below leaps from rock to rock, and foams through a bed so tormented, that, although owing to its depth of at least five hundred feet from the foundations of the castle, it looks almost like a thread, it sends up a roar not less loud than that of the breakers under Shakspeare's Cliff. The valley, opening for its passage, gives to the view, first, the Tagus, on the opposite bank of which lies the town of Montalban, dependant on the lords of the castle; beyond it an extensive plain, dotted with castles and towns, most of them on the road from Madrid to Talavera; and at the horizon the Sierra del Duque, coated with snow from about half its height upwards. The extent of the view is about sixty miles.

The outer enceinte of the castle of Montalban encloses a space of five or six acres in extent, in which no buildings remain, with the exception of the picturesque ruin of a small chapel in the centre. Like almost all other residences possessed of scenery sufficiently precipitous, this castle boasts its lover's leap. A projection of wall is pointed out, looking over the most perpendicular portion of the ravine, to which a tradition is attached, deprived by time of all tangible distinctness, if ever it possessed any. The title given to the spot in this instance is "The Leap of the Moorish Girl," Despeñadera de la Mora. The position will probably bear no comparison with the Leucadian promontory; nor is it equal to the Peña de los Enamorados, near Antequera, in Andalucia, immortal likewise in the annals of passion, and of which the authentic story is preserved. Of those in our country I could name one—but I will not, though few know it better—nor is it the meanest of its tribe. But with these exceptions I know of none among the numerous plagiarisms of the famous lover's leap of antiquity that offers to despair in search of the picturesque more attractions than the Despeñadera of Montalban.