268 A Day in the Lower Sierra 
These watercourses in the month of May form a haven of 
refuge toa multitude of living things. True it is that the streams 
at their bottoms are usually trivial, but at frequent intervals the 
winter floods have hollowed out deep pits with precipitous sides 
which now form a succession of pools and afford an asylum for 
much animal life. With abundant water below and the sun of 
southern Spain above it may easily be imagined that along these 
watercourses Nature simply runs riot. The banks are densely 
overgrown with rank grasses and herbage rendered gorgeous by 
the variety of tints of the crimson sanfoin and deep purple-blue 
cerinthe. Frogs of all sizes both green and brown keep up a 
noisy chorus which suddenly ceases as they detect the approach 
of a traveller and successively take headers into the pool below. 
Along the steep sunny side of the gully water-tortoises are to be 
seen clustered on the hard baked mud from which they scuttle or 
simply let go and fall into the water with a series of flops. 
At places the path is almost blocked by huge umbelliferous plants 
with white flowers over 9 in. across, and by a profusion of big 
yellow and purple thistles. 
Between the flowers, plants, reptile and last, but not least, 
teeming insect life, a ride along one of these watercourses is to me 
ever a source of interest and yet it is merely a passing phase of 
similar, albeit differing experiences under the ever-varying con- 
ditions of travel in Andalucia. 
As we gradually left the low country and ascended the rolling 
green hills which everywhere skirt the szon¢ée or scrub region, our 
view of the surrounding country rapidly extended. Behind us, the 
vast plain of the Laguna de la Janda stretched northward towards 
the far distant purple hills, amid which the old Moorish towns of 
Alcala de las Gazules and Medina Sidonia sparkled white in the 
strong sunlight. Soon the Bay of Trafalgar with its fringe of 
yellow sandhills and steep sandstone cliffs came in sight. Far away 
