Nathaniel Wells - The Picturesque Antiquities of Spain

Its width is just sufficient for the passage of two vehicles abreast, and it is covered with flag-paving. The river flows sixty feet below. At the back of the tower which faces you, at the opposite end of the bridge, rises a rock, almost isolated from the rest of the cliff, and on its top the half-ruined towers and walls of a Moorish castle. On the left hand extends the valley, through which the river approaches in a broad mass. The road to Aranjuez follows the same direction, after having first disappeared round the base of the rock just mentioned, and is bordered with rose-trees, and occasional groups of limes, which separate it from the portions set apart for pedestrians. On the right hand the river (still looking from the bridge) is suddenly pressed in between precipices, becomes narrow, and at the distance of a few hundred yards, forms a noisy cascade.

VIEW OF TOLEDO

Still looking in that direction, the left bank—a rocky precipice, as I mentioned before—curves round and soon hurries it out of sight. The lower part of the opposite or town bank is ornamented, close to the cascade, with a picturesque ruin, on which you look down from your position. This consists of three stories of arches, standing partly in the water. Above and behind them rise a few larger buildings, almost perpendicularly over each other, and the summit is crowned with the colossal quadrangular mass of the Alcazar.

The ruinous arches just mentioned, are the remains of a building erected by a speculator, who had conceived a plan for raising water to the Alcazar by means of wheels, furnished with jars, according to the custom of this part of Spain. The arrangement is simple; the jars, being attached round a perpendicular wheel, successively fill with water, as each arrives at the bottom, and empty themselves, on reaching the summit, into any receptacle placed so as to receive their contents. The speculator, having to operate on a colossal scale, intended probably to super-pose wheel over wheel, and to establish reservoirs at different elevations, as it would scarcely be possible to work a wheel of such dimensions as to carry jars to the height required (more than three hundred feet), even though furnished with ropes, which are made to turn round the wheel and descend below it.

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The very polite individual alluded to no longer fills the post of Consul at Bayonne.

The following inscriptions are placed at the feet of the respective statues:

"Aqui yace el muy Ilustre Señor Don Pedro Hernandez de Velasco, Condestable de Castilla, Señor del estado, y gran casa de Velasco, hijo de Don Pedro Hernandez de Velasco, y de Doña Beatriz Manrique, Condes de Haro. Murio de setenta y siete años, anno de mil cuatro cientos y noventa y dos, siendo solo Virey de estos reynos por los Reyes Catolicos."

"Aqui yace la muy Ilustre Señora Doña Mencia de Mendoza, Condesa de Haro, muger del Condestable Don Pedro Hernandez de Velasco, hija de Don Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, y de Doña Catalina de Figueroa, Marqueses de Santillana. Murio de setenta y nueve annos, anno de mil y quiniento."

The above woodcut may, it is hoped, serve as a guide to future travellers in their search for this head, of which it has no pretension to give an adequate idea.

It will be seen that this letter was written shortly after the Queen's return to Spain, and previous to the publication of her marriage.

It is probable that this threat, supposing it real, may have assisted in determining the Queen's resolution, since executed, of publishing the marriage.