38 Mr. G. C. Champion's and Dr. T. A. Chapman's 



■with less call on our philosophy than Herr von Heyden 

 must have suffered. We remained here from July 3th — 

 22nd. 



Coming up from the south at Leon, the railway follows 

 the valley, and has to make hardly any twists or spirals, 

 to reach the Perruca tunnel, by which it pierces the col. 

 But on the north face it emerges on a steep slope, and 

 has to make many curves and zigzags to fall some 2500 ft. 

 in half-a-dozen miles, running in fact over twenty actual 

 miles of line. At the Puerto the road south follows the 

 bottom of the valley at a regular and easy gradient. On the 

 north side the floor of this valley is some 2000 ft. below 

 and looks as if one could throw a stone into it. The 

 mountains on the north side have very steep slopes, with 

 bold outlines and rocky and precipitous summits, and 

 there are many picturesque rocky outcrops. Although 

 there are some bold rocks here and there in the southern 

 valleys, generally speaking the hills are rounded and 

 grassy, but often with very steep flanks. They have very 

 little wood on the south side. On the north there is much 

 beech wood, mixed with birch in the higher ground, little 

 larger than coppice towards the Puerto, but with actual 

 timber lower down. The region seems to be destitute of 

 pine forests. 



The general aspect of the country, as to physical 

 features and vegetation, was more like portions of the 

 Scotch Highlands than anything in the central portion of 

 Spain that we visited. The country is, in fact, Atlantic 

 and not Mediterranean, and has a rainfall that is not 

 lacking at any season of the year, more than occasionally 

 happens even in Scotland. Going into detail, however, 

 the flora of course presented many plants unknown in the 

 north, though heather, gorse, various pasture and bog 

 grasses and other plants, such as Seneeio, etc., were actually 

 or nearly identical. 



During most of our stay, we were much interested for 

 practical as well as other reasons in a curious daily cycle 

 that obtained. The early morning would be brilliantly 

 fine, but by 8 or 9 o'clock, though it continued so to the 

 south, the northern valleys would be filled by a sea of fog 

 to within 500 or 1000 feet of the level of the Pass, with 

 mountains and ridges standing out of it like islands, a 

 light south wind blowing over the col ; gradually the fog 

 would rise like a flowing tide, and at length would reach 



