East of Malaga lie several coast towns of importance, within whose gates the traveller rarely sets foot. Motril, Adra, Almeria--what is there in them to reward the fatigue of a journey in a diligence along the parched shore, or in some crazy coasting craft, with timbers straining and creaking before the lightest breeze? Almeria is now connected directly by rail with Madrid and Granada. The prosperity of the whole district is bound to be greatly increased by the construction of the line so long promised from Guadix to Baza. This short link in the railway system would save the traveller from Malaga to Valencia nearly 180 miles, or its alternative--a long and exhausting diligence journey. It would also bring the southern parts of Andalusia into direct communication with the great commercial centres of eastern Spain and with Marseilles. It would supply us with a new route to Gibraltar, moreover. This, with a line from Jaca across the Pyrenees into France, and another from Huelva to connect with the Portuguese system Villa Real de São Antonio, are links of which Spain stands vitally in need. [Illustration: MALAGA--A MARKET] CHAPTER VI THE WAY SOUTH At Bobadilla--the Clapham Junction of Andalusia--the Spanish railway system is joined by the line of that purely British undertaking, the Algeciras Railway Company. A Spaniard told me that this line would never have been built by one of his countrymen, as no one in Spain had any desire to facilitate Gibraltar's communication with England, and the country it traversed had been sufficiently opened up. I do not think it would be difficult to demonstrate that the line may prove of very substantial benefit to Spain, but I will confine myself to thanking the promoters for having rendered accessible certainly the most beautiful part of Andalusia, and in my opinion one of the most wildly picturesque regions of Europe. The country between Ronda and Algeciras is the Andalusia dreamt of by the romancers. It is a savage, silent country, of warmer browns and greens than the rest of Spain. Here the train takes you no longer across the scorched sky-rimmed plains, but along the very edge of dizzy ravines, at the foot of which, hundreds of feet below, angry white torrents foam and froth. Now you are climbing with obvious effort the steep shoulder of a mountain, now you are racing headlong down into a valley which seems to lie almost vertically beneath you. Now you plunge into the bowels of the Sierra and emerge with a shriek of triumph in a cauldron-shaped valley, from which Nature has provided no egress. There is no want of verdure; the cork-woods, vineyards, and olives dot the lower slopes of the tawny hills. And far up against the sky-line loom shattered towers and crumbling castles, whence you seem to see trains of steel-clad knights issuing forth to do battle with the Moor.