166 



WILD SPAIN. 



IV. — Nevada and the Alpujakkas — Ten Days in a 

 Snow- cave. 



The grandeur of the Sierra Nevada, with its lofty sky- 

 lines, all white and clean-cut against an azure background, 

 majestic Mulahacen and the Picachos de la Veleta, are 

 familiar objects to most visitors to Southern Spain. The 

 majority, however, are content with the distant view from 

 the palace-fortresses of the Alhambra or the turrets of 

 the Generalife. Few dream of penetrating those alpine 

 solitudes or scaling their peaks, which look so near, yet 

 cost such toil and labour to gain. Yet the labour is 

 repaid, if the traveller has an eye for what is wildest and 

 grandest in nature. 



For ourselves, we are not ashamed to admit that these 

 snow-clad sierras possess attractions that transcend in 

 interest even the accumulated art-treasures and wealth of 

 historic and legendary lore that surround the shattered 

 relics of Moslem rule — of an empire-city where for seven 

 centuries the power and faith of the crescent dominated 

 the south-west of Europe, and which formed the home 

 and the centre of mediaeval chivalry and culture. These 

 subjects and sentiments, moreover, stand in no need of a 

 historian : they have engaged the sympathy of legion 

 pens, many directed by a grace, a power and a knowledge 

 to which we dream not of aspiring. To us Granada has 

 rather been merely a " base of operations " whence the 

 ibex and lammergeyer might conveniently be studied or 

 pursued. 



Of our own experiences amidst the twin heights of 

 Nevada and the Alpuj arras we might write : but, in this 

 case, we have preferred to avail ourselves of certain notes 

 for which we are indebted to two good friends and thorough 

 sportsmen, in the hope that the change may be to the 

 reader a pleasing contrast from the semper ego otherwise 

 inevitable. 



On a bitterly cold March morning we found ourself, as 

 day slowly broke, traversing the outspurs of the sierra — 



