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Augsburg. the Escurial
it has so many engines and divisions with gates and keys, and apartments for guards, at some distance from each other, where passengers are examined, that it is impossible for the town to be surprised this way; the gates are bolted and unbolted, opened and shut, by unseen operators, so that it looks like enchantment. -The Water Towers are also very curious, of which there are three, seated on a branch of the Lech, which runs through the city in such a torrent, as to drive many mills, which work a number of pumps, that raise the water in large leaden pipes to the top of the towers. One of these sends water to the public fountains; and the rest, to near one thousand houses in the city.
THE ESCURIAL, -is a royal residence of Spain, fifteen miles north-west of Madrid. It is the largest and most superb structure in the kingdom, and one of the finest in Europe. The word is Arabic, meaning "a place full of rocks." It is built in a dry barren spot, surrounded with rugged mountains, insomuch that every thing which grows there is owing to art. This place was chosen, it is said, for the sake of the stone wherewith the fabric is built, which is got from a mountain just by, and is very durable; and the design of erecting it was to commemorate a victory which Philip II. obtained over the French (by the assistance of the English forces) at St. Quintin, on St. Lawrence's day, in the year 1557.
The Spanish description of this structure forms a sizeable quarto volume. Its founder expended upon it six millions of ducats. The apartments are decorated with an astonishing variety of paintings, sculpture, tapestry, ornaments of gold and silver, marble, jasper, gems, and other curious stones, surpassing all imagination. This building, besides its palace, contains a church, large and richly ornamented; a mausoleum; cloisters; a convent; a college; and a library, containing about thirty thousand volumes; besides large apartments for all kinds of artists and mechanics, noble walks, with extensive parks and gardens, beautified with fountains and costly ornaments. The fathers that live in the convent are two hundred, and they have an annual revenue of £12,000.