Our '^Home-Mountains ' 357 



The bed of the canyon, whicli from above liad appeared to be 

 paved with sand, now proved to consist of boulders ten feet 

 high. After threading a devious course through these for 

 half-a-mile we reached the mouth of the grotto. Its width 

 would be nearly 200 feet and height about half that, the form 

 roughly resembling the quarter of i\ cocoa-nut. The dome, in 

 delicate colouring, passes description — the apex bright salmon- 

 pink, changing, as it passed inwards, first into clear emerald, 

 then to dark green, and finally to indigo ; while the reflected 

 sunlight filtering down between the rock-walls of the canyon 

 caused phantasmagoric effects such as, one thought, existed only 

 in fairyland. The cavern Avas backed by pillars of stalactites 

 resembling the pipes of a mighty organ, and of so soft and 

 feathery a texture that it was surprising, on touching them, to 

 find hard rock. The floor also was composed of great smooth 

 stalagmites, deep brown in colour. 



From outside, one saw the sky as through a narrow rift 

 between the perpendicular walls which towered up rsOO feet ; and 

 above that level there again uprose the vultures' cliffs already 

 described. 



One evening we detected afar a cavern which showed signs 

 of being the present abode of a lammergeyer. Ere reaching it, 

 however, a keen eye descried one of these birds in the heavens 

 at an altitude that dwarfed the great Gypaetus to the size of a 

 humble kestrel. Presently, after many descending sweeps, the 

 lammergeyer entered another cavern 2000 feet higher up — in fact, 

 close under the sky-line, among some scanty pinsapos. The hour 

 was 4 P.M., and after a long day's scraml)le, the writer shied at 

 a fresh ascent. Not so my com})anion, L., who set off at a run, 

 and within an hour had reached the eyrie. It proved empty, 

 though the leg of a freshly killed kid lay half across the nest. 

 This was presumably the alternative site, used, this year, merely 

 as a larder ; but time did not that night admit of further search. 



The writer beguiled the two-hours interval in interviewing a 

 wild gipsy-eyed girl of twelve, whose name was Jos^fa AguilCir, 

 and whose vocation in life to attend a herd of swine. Through- 

 out Spain, whether on mountain or plain, one sees this thing — 

 a small boy or girl spending the livelong day in solitary charge 

 of dumb beasts, goats or pigs, even turkeys — and the sight ever 



