Sierra de Gr^dos 211 



while was broken up ; tents and gear packed, on ponies and 

 mules, breakfast finished — we were otF, heavenwards. Then, just 

 as the laden pack-animals filed through the burn, there rode up a 

 man — he had ridden all nio;ht — and bore a message that changed 

 our exuberant joy to grief — bad news from home. 



There could be no doubt — the waiter must return at once. 

 Within five minutes I had decided to make for a point on the 

 northern railway beyond the hills and distant some sixty miles 

 as the crow flies. Baggage and battery were abandoned ; a 

 handbag with a satchel of provisions and a wine-skin formed my 

 luggage, and, leaving my companions in this wuld spot, I set 

 forth in the grey dawn on a barebacked mule devoid of saddle, 

 bridle, or stirrups, and accompanied by two of our hill-bred 

 lads, one riding pillion behind or running alongside in turn. 



Where the grey ramparts of the Risco del Fraile and the 

 Casquerazo frown on a rugged earth below I parted with my 

 old pals, they to continue the ibex-hunt, I on my mournful 

 homeward way. 



Bee-eaters poised and chattered, brilliant butterflies (whose 

 names I forgot to note), abounded as we rode along those fearful 

 edges and boulder-studded steeps. Six hours of this brought us 

 to a rock-poised hamlet of the sierra. The landlord of the posada 

 was also the Alcalde (mayor) of the district, and even then pre- 

 siding over a meeting of the council (ayuntamiento). Amidst 

 dogs, children, fleas, and dirt, along with my two goat-herd 

 friends, we made breakfast. 



Thence over the main pass of Navasomera — no road, not the 

 vestige of a track, and a tremendous ravine stopped us for hours, 

 and for a time threatened to prove impassable. By patience and 

 recklessness we lowered mule and ourselves down scrub-choked 

 screes, and after some of the roughest work of my life gained a 

 goat-herd's track which led upwards to the pass. After clearing 

 the reverse slope we traversed for twenty miles a dreary upland 

 (GOOO feet) till we struck the head-waters of the Albirche river, 

 where my lads tickled half-a-dozen trout and a frog ! Kites beat 

 along the stony hills, where wheatears and stonechats fluttered 

 incessant, with dippers and sandpipers on the burn below. 



We halted at a lonely venta (wayside wine -shop), where 

 assembled goat-herds courteously made room, and passed me their 

 wine-skin. Presently one of them asked whither I went, remarking, 



