J 



02 Unexplored Spain 



From this spot — still poetically called El Ultimo Suspiro del 

 Moro — the Sierra Nevada stretches away some forty miles to the 

 eastward with au a verge depth of ten miles, and includes within 

 that area the four loftiest altitudes in all this mountain-spangled 

 Peninsula of Spain. The chief points in the Pyrenees, nevertheless, 

 run them fairly close, as shown in the following table : — 



Greatest Altitudes in Feet 



By way of comparison it may be added that the next greatest 

 elevations in Spain are : — 



Picos de Europa (described in Chap. XXVIII.) . . . 10,046 feet 



Sierra de Credos (already described) . . . . . 8,700 „ 



Curiously all the loftiest elevations occur outside the great 

 central table-lands of Spain, the highest point of which latter is 

 the last-quoted Sierra de Gredos. 



Adjoining the Sierra Nevada on the south, and practically 

 filling the entire space between it and the Mediterranean, lie the 

 Alpuxarras, covering some fourteen miles by ten. The Alpuxarras 

 are of no great elevation (4000 to 5000 feet), and are separated from 

 their giant neighbours by the Valle de Lecrin, the entrance to 

 which bears the poetic name of El Ultimo Suspiro del Moro, as 

 just described. 



Here is a Spanish appreciation of Nevada : — 



Compare this with northern mountains — Alps or Pyrenees : the tone, 

 the colours, the ambient air differentiate this southern range. Snow, 

 it is true, surmounts all alike, but here the very sky flashes radiant 

 {rutilante) in its azure intensity contrasted with the cold blue of glacier-ice. 

 Here, in lower latitude, the rocks appear rather scorched by a torrid sun 

 than lashed by winter rain and hibernal furies. The valleys present a 

 semi-tropical aspect, resulting from the industry of old-time Moors, who, 

 ever faithful to the precepts of the Koran, introduced every such species 

 of exotic fruit or herb as was calculated to flourish and enrich the land.^ 



The main chain of the Sierra Nevada constitutes one of the 



' La A^jujarra, by Don Pedro A. de Alarcon (4tli edition, Madrid, 1903). 



