358 



Unexplored Spain 



causes me a pang of regret. Probably 1 am quite wrong, but 

 such hardly seems a human vocation — certainly it leads nowhere. 

 In intervals of pelting her recalcitrant charges with stones, Josefa 

 told me she lived in a reed-hut which was close by, Ijut so small 

 that I had overlooked its existence ; that she never went to school 

 or had been farther from home than Zahara, a village some few 

 miles away. She asked if I was from Grazalema, and on being 

 told from England, she repeated the word "Inglaterra" again 

 and again, while hei- bright black eyes became almost sessile with 



LAMMERGEYER ENTERING EYRIE 



wonderment. Josefa's frock was hano-ino; in tatters, torn to bits 

 by the thorny scrub. I gave her some coppers to buy a new one, 

 and with a little iovous scream Josefa vanished among^ the bush. 



Darkness was closing in ere L. returned ; then great thunder- 

 clouds rolled up, obscuring the moon, and oh I what we suffered 

 those next three hours, scrambling over rock and ridge, through 

 forest and thicket — all in inky darkness and under a deluge of rain. 



On returnino- to this remote rids^e (havino- ascended from the 

 opposite face), we soon renewed our friendship with the lammer- 

 geyer — when first seen, it was being mobbed by an impudent 

 chough. Then it sailed up the deep gorge below us, passing close 

 in front, and after clearing an angle of the hill, wheeled inwards 



