"It is placed on a rock, with cliffs, either perpendicular and abrupt towards the river, or with broken craggs, whose jutting prominences, having a little soil, have been planted with orange and fig trees. A fissure in this rock, of great depth, surrounds the city on three sides, and at the bottom of the fissure the river rushes along with impetuous rapidity. Two bridges are constructed over the fissure; the first is a single arch, resting on the rocks on the two sides, the height of which from the water is one hundred and twenty feet. The river descends from this to the second bridge, whilst the rocks on each side as rapidly increase in height; so that from this second bridge to the water, there is the astonishing height of two hundred and eighty feet. The highest tower in Spain, the Giralda, in Seville, or the Monument, near London Bridge, if they were placed on the water, might stand under this stupendous arch, without their tops reaching to it." "The mode of constructing this bridge is no less surprising than the situation in which it is placed, and its extraordinary elevation; it is a single arch of one hundred and ten feet in diameter; it is supported by solid pillars of masonry, built from the bottom of the river, about fifteen feet in thickness, which are fixed into the solid rock on both sides, and on which the ends of the arch rest; other pillars are built to support these principal ones, which are connected with them by other small arches. But as it is difficult to describe such an edifice, I must refer to the sketch I have made of it." (_See the Cut_.) "A bridge was built on this spot in 1735, but the key-stone not having been properly secured, it fell down in 1741, by which fifty persons were killed. The present bridge was finished in 1774, by Don Joseph Martin Aldeheula, a celebrated architect of Malaga; and appears so well constructed as to bid defiance almost to time itself." "It is impossible to convey an adequate idea of it: from below it appears suspended in the air; and when upon the bridge, the river beneath appears no longer a mighty torrent, but resembles a rippling brook. When standing on the bridge, the optical delusion is very singular: the torrent of water appears to run up a hill towards the bridge, and the same phenomenon takes place when viewed in either direction."