i6o Unexplored Spain 



guerrilleros on earth) comes effectively into play. In practice 

 it is seldom that the best " passes " are not commanded. 



In the higher ranges skylines are frequently pierced by nicks 

 or " passes " (termed portillas) sufficiently marked as to suggest, 

 even to a stranger possessed of an eye for such things, the 

 probable lines of retreat for moving game. But "passes" are 

 not always conspicuous, nor are all skylines of broken contour. 

 On the contrary, there frequently present themselves long summits 

 that to casual glance appear wholly uniform. Here comes to aid 

 that local intuition referred to, nor will it be found lacking. 

 Many a long hill-ridge apparently featureless may (and often 

 does) include several well-frequented passes. Some slight sense 

 of disappointment may easily lurk in one's breast in surveying 

 one's allotted post to perceive not a single sign of "advantage" 

 within its radius — or "jurisdiction," as Spanish keepers quaintly 

 put it. Yet it may be after all — and probably is — the apex of a 

 congeries of converging watercourses, glens, or other accustomed 

 salidas (outlets), all of which are invisible in the unseen depths 

 on one's front ; but which salient points in cynegetic geography 

 are perfectly appreciated by our guide. 



The brushwood of Morena consists over vast areas — many 

 hundreds of square miles — of the gum-cistus, a sticky -leaved 

 shrub that grows shoulder-high on the stoniest ground. Wherever 

 a slightly more generous soil permits, the cistus is interspersed 

 and thickened with rhododendron, brooms, myrtle, and a hundred 

 coo-nate plants. On the richer slopes and dells there crowd 

 together a matted jungle of leutisk and arbutus, white buck-thorn 

 and holly, all intertwined with vicious prehensile briar and 

 woodbine, together with heaths, genista, giant ferns, and gorse 

 of a score of species. Watercourses are overarched by oleanders, 

 and the chief trees are cork-oak and ilex, wild-olive, juniper, and 

 alder, besides others of which we only know the Spanish names, 

 quejigos, algarrobas, agracejis, etc. 



Naturally, in such rugged broken ground as the sierras, where 

 the guns are protected by intervening heights, shooting is 

 permissible in any direction, whether in front or behind, and 

 even sometimes along the line itself A survival of savage days, 

 when beaters didn't count, is suggested by a refrain of the sierra : — 



Mtis vale matar uii Cristiano 

 Que no dejdr ir una res — 



