In the Sierra Nevada 3 i 5 



into a cavern above. Five minutes later lie reappeared and, after 

 several aerial evolutions, suddenly checked and, with indrawn 

 pinions, swept downwards to earth. Ere we could surmount an 

 intervening ridge, the great dragon-like (ryjxtetns swept into 

 view, his golden breast gleaming in the early sunlight, and bearing 

 in his talons a long bone with which he sailed across the valley 

 towards Trevenque ; we watched to see the result, but, so far as 

 prism-glasses could reach, that bone was never dropped. Probably 

 he had some special spot habitually used for bone - breaking. 

 Later a griffon-vulture (a species rarely seen in Nevada) passed 

 overhead, antl then a second lammergeyer sailed up the gorge 

 of Monachil. 



SOARING VULTURE 



'Tis a long up-grade grind to the Peilones, but repaid by 

 magnificent views of the Picacho de la Veleta — its scarped out- 

 line gloriously offset against the deepest azure and its 1000-foot 

 sheer drop vanishing to unseen depths in the mysterious " corral " 

 beneath — an inspiring scene. 



Beyond to the eastward towered the mountain-mass, Mulahacen 

 — perpetuating the name of that Moslem chief whose remains, 

 so tradition records, yet lie in some unknown glacial niche in 

 this the loftiest spot of all the Spains. There they were laid 

 to rest by the fond hands of Zoraya, at the dying request of 

 her husband the penultimate Moorish king, Muley-Hacen. 



Our upward course led through beds of dwarf-jiniiper, thick 

 strong stems all flattened down horizontally by the weight of 

 winters' snows, precisely as one sees them on the high fjelds of 



