BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 387 
_ places in the fields, have a striking appearance and remind 
. the traveller of the Campagna of Rome. | 
= We had now reached a height, equal to that of the eastern 
a extremity of the Sierra de Mijas, by which, all day long, our 
E- view of the sea had been shut out, and we passed at a small 
.. distance the country residence called Retiro, which the Mala- 
. Buefios vaunt too much to strangers, but where they find 
_ What is certainly very rare in their neighbourhood, shade and 
Tunning streams. The country through which we now tra- 
velled was delightful and fertile; either farms, girded with 
| ange groves, or forests of olive trees, among which the gentle 
breeze allayed the heat of noon and from whence the eye 
might catch distant prospects through the trembling leaves. 
_ This lovely valley did not continue long with us, and leaving 
. it we ascended an uncultivated and vast plain which slopes 
. Southward from the Sierra. All this open space was dotted 
With species of Cistus, thorny shrubs, and here and there, a 
few clusters of stunted Evergreen Oaks. About mid-way, we 
came to a hut made of leaves, where four peasants from Al- 
haurin mounted guard; many plundering attacks, which 
lately occurred in this neighbourhood, having given rise;to 
this precaution, and indeed it had been difficult for robbers 
to select a spot more favourable for their purposes, for they 
might every where lay ambushes among these wild thickets 
and escape pursuit by fleeing to the mountains. Though 
Vegetation was somewhat monotonous, I still gathered some 
interesting plants, as Cleonia Lusitanica, Stachys Italica, 
villosa, Dianthus serrulatus and the elegant Linum 
suffruticosum, which grew abundantly among the bushes, its 
corollas being successively pink, white, and yellow. After 
_ Walking for about five Spanish leagues, we descended by an 
. “sy slope to Alhaurin, a perfect earthly paradise, full of mul- 
: and orange trees, and watered with numberless brooks. 
So fertile ; is the land by nature, that splendid harvests are 
ripened beneath the shade of these trees; and a naturalist 
need to have visited southern Spain, ere hé can form an idea 
productive power of i its soil, when blessed with a mo- 
FF 2 
