Segovia fills the height of a long rock shaped like a ship within this stormy earth. Below one side pours the Eresma, with its melted snows. The valley rises on the other beam, purple and bronze soil, blue sage, rock ... rises to a village that lies flat like a dory on the breast of a wave ... rises again to the sky where the clouds drive wildly. Segovia’s ancient walls are bastioned, pierced with knotty towers and gates, and topped with the typical round cubos which Rome gave to Spain. The walls bind the precipitous rock which holds a park and the Alcázar, the usual pile of tessellated towers that gave Castile its name. This is one end of the town. The rock goes higher toward the center. Houses are a clutter, unanimous like an army in the moment ere it comes forth to attack. A romanesque church, a feudal tower rise from the stony mob like leaders. And in the town’s heart, stands the Cathedral. Its interior is intricate and cold. But in the façade of the city, it is perfect. It is the climax of Segovia rising to meet it. To the right Alcázar is alone, facing the waste of the meseta; alone above the river and the rock like a lord of the city. But now, the streets mount, an aspiration makes them one: their goal is the Cathedral. Its base is lost in the streets. Rise free and clear only the two thick towers and the crest of the gigantic nave. The Cathedral is a ship breasting the sea of the town: even as the town is a ship, breasting the hills. Down from the Cathedral in the direction away from Alcázar, once more the city falls. No regular descent. There is no metric rhythm in Segovia, save for the mind that stands outside of it. An Olympian eye sees the vast bowl of the Guadarrama: and on the tide of turf and rock, the city riding like a frigate: and in the town, this regular rise to the Cathedral. But each of these general units is a chaos. The plateau is an intricate context of heights, villages, farms and valley-spots suddenly sweet with orchards. The wave on which Segovia rides is itself broken into rising, falling crests. To make a hundred yards of horizontal progress, the voyager must go up, go down: slipping through alleys that swerve, climbing steps that lift him into hidden _plazas_ where an old church spreads its romanesque cloisters like wings, or a palace with faceted walls stands aloof from a plebeian throng of houses. So, laboriously the voyager makes his way to the other end of town. There is a Square. The Aqueduct of Rome, immemorial and chaste, rises from the Spanish market. _Plaza del Azoquejo_: it is a name that recalls the soukhs and bazaars of Islam. Within its sordid taverns, fish-shops, stands Rome.