"The Alcázar is the only important building seen on entering on this side; but from the other side of the city, where the bridge of San Martin crosses the Tagus, the cathedral is a feature in the view, though it never seems to be so prominent as might be expected with a church of its grand scale.[16] From both these points of view, indeed, it must be remembered that the effect is not produced by the beauty or grandeur of any one building; it is the desolate sublimity of the dark rocks that bound the river; the serried phalanx of wall, and town, and house that line the cliffs; the tropical colour of sky and earth, and masonry; and finally the forlorn, decaying and deserted aspect of the whole that makes the views so impressive and so unusual. Looking away from the city walls towards the north, the view is much more _riant_, for there the Tagus, escaping from its rocky defile, meanders across a fertile vega, and long lines of trees, with here a ruined castle, and there the repose of the curious Church of the Cristo de la Vega, and there again the famous factory of arms, give colour and incident to a view which would anywhere be thought beautiful, but is doubly grateful by comparison with the sad dignity of the forlorn old city." Toledo's finest hour is at sunset, especially in the month of October. Nowhere have I seen the setting sun cast such a rich and lovely flush over the earth. The brown visage of the town for one intense moment is made radiant by the deep crimson flames, and the red light sheds a glorious beauty upon empty hill-sides and river-washed plains. Magic enfolds city and land, and space is so abridged by the matchless purity of the atmosphere that the eye is tricked into the belief that distant objects are quite close. Painters complain of this singular deception, which makes it so difficult to seize and reproduce the features of town and landscape. But the mere observer will naturally rejoice in an attraction the more.