We pass on to Spain, which has been called the land of bridges and aqueducts. A pontist may live there for many years and be happy all the time. Even a hurried author, who visits the antiquity of Spain as a mere journalist, and who mimics vainly the travel books of Alexandre Dumas, finds that the many bridges put some thoroughness into his own work, acting as a drag on the far-sought and dear-bought liveliness with which the million may be charmed. There is the case of S. R. Crockett, who was commissioned to be lively and daring among the Spaniards, so he published in 1903 “The Adventurer in Spain,” a poor copy both of Borrow and of Dumas. “I would like to write a book--copiously illustrated--upon Spanish bridges alone,” he told his readers in a moment of zeal, adding briskly, “that is, if I thought anybody could be found to buy it.” In one passage thought and enthusiasm very nearly broke loose from the discipline of “a popular style”:-- “Many bridges, too, there were--wonderful in a country where, as in Spain, there are neither roads to travel upon nor waters to cross--nor even, it may be added, travellers to cross them. Yet in our first hour we had passed, we five apprentice Carlists, at least as many admirable bridges--clean-shaped, practical, suited to the place and to the landscape as a becoming dress fits a pretty woman. This is a rare thing in bridges, and one which is almost never to be found in new countries, where a bridge is invariably an outrage upon the surrounding scenery. Queer bridges we found--triangular bridges, unnecessary bridges, of wood and stone and straw and stubble--but never ugly bridges.”