Many persons believe that Wellington’s troops, in 1809, blew up one of the smaller arches, but this is untrue. The history of the ruined arch has been given by Larousse. It was cut on two occasions. In 1213 the Saracens destroyed it, and Charles the Fifth rebuilt it in 1543. Two hundred and sixty-five years passed, and then the French in 1808 were compelled by the policy of war to wreck the same arch, and I have already described how Wellington bridged the gap with a netting of ropes--a suspension bridge of ships’ cables--covered with planks (p. 16). This temporary work was displaced by a wooden arch, which in 1818 was burnt down; and between this date and the Carlist wars no restoration seems to have been attempted. “The Spaniards were long content with a ferry,” says Mr. Wigram. But now they have renewed the arch “in its native granite, a feat of which they are justly proud. Only, seeing that no cement at all was used in the original building, it was really a little too bad of them to insist upon pointing _all_ the joints!” True; but the workmen were modern, not Roman, and it was humility on their part to advertise their cement, their most evident strength. [Illustration: THE BRIDGE AT ZARAGOZA, PARTLY ROMAN] The Moorish words _Al Kántarah_ mean THE BRIDGE, and we know that the Titanic masterpiece of Julius Lacer has but few rivals. Let us put it side by side with the most stately bridges at Isfahan in Persia, whose august charm is not so masculine (p. 268); then we do honour to the finest pontine architecture in the world. The Alcántara is a King, a Cæsar, while the two Persian achievements are Amazon Queens. Several bridges in Spain have the honorary title of being Roman, either because they exhibit a combination of Roman and Moorish masonry like the sixteen-arched example at Córdova, or because they may have in them some Roman workmanship, like the Puente de Piedra over the Ebro at Zaragoza, which has seven arches and six very massive piers, far too ungainly to be Roman. Indeed this bridge dates from 1437, but it was built on a classical site, and on Roman foundations. Some houses give interest to the upstream side of the piers, but their roofs do not rise above the level of the parapet. As for the bridge over the Guadalquivir at Córdova, it is more Moorish than Roman, for most of the Roman arches were destroyed by the eighth century, and they were reconstructed by the Arabs, who established themselves at Córdova in 711. Recently this bridge has been so much repaired that it looks almost new. A big tower, very Moorish in style, the Calahorra, keeps guard at the end remote from the town; and the city entrance has a worn classic gateway and an elevated statue of Saint Raphael, the patron saint of Córdova. [Illustration: THE HUGE DEFENSIVE BRIDGE AT CÓRDOVA IN SPAIN. ORIGINALLY ROMAN, BUT REMODELLED BY THE MOORS IN THE NINTH CENTURY, RECENTLY SO MUCH REPAIRED THAT LOOKS ALMOST NEW] III