Sierra Moréna 149 
nor wild-boar, whereas it forms the selected home of ibex and 
lammergeyer, both of which are conspicuous by their absence 
from Moréna, save for a single segregated colony of wild-goats 
near Fuen-Caliente. 
Although the Sierra Moréna partakes rather of massive than 
of abrupt character, yet there occur at a couple of points outcrops 
of naked rock of real grandeur. Such, for example, is Despefia- 
perros, through whose gorges the Andalucian railway threads 
a semi-subterranean course. The very name Despefiaperros 
signifies in that wondrously adaptive Spanish tongue nothing 
less than that its living rocks threaten to hurl to death and 
destruction even dogs that venture thereon. 
Another interpretation suggests that in olden days, such 
were the pleasantries of the Moors, it was not dogs, but Christians 
(since to a Moor the terms were synonymous) that were hurled 
to their death from the rzscos of Despefiaperros. 
These rock-formations are superbly abrupt. Great detached 
crags, massive and moss-marbled, jut perpendicular from ragged 
steeps, or vast monoliths protrude, each in rectilineal outline 
so exact that one wonders if these are truly of nature’s handi- 
work, and not some fabled fortalice of old-time Goth or Moor. 
Despite its striking contour, however, its crags and precipices 
are too scattered and detached (with traversable intervals 
between) to attract such a rock-lover as the ibex, and no wild- 
goat has ever occupied the gorges of Despefiaperros. 
A similar rock-region, but more extensive and continuous, 
is found near Fuen-Caliente—by name the Sierra Quintana. 
This range, though its elevations barely exceed 7000 feet, forms 
the only spot in the Sierra Moréna at which the Spanish ibex 
retains a foothold. 
Thereat the writer in 1901 endured one of those evil 
experiences which from time to time befall those who seek 
hunting-grounds in the wilder corners of the earth. It was in 
mid-February that, forced by bitter extremity of weather, we 
fain sought refuge in the hamlet of Fuen-Caliente clinging at 
5700 feet on the steep of the sierra, as crag-martins fix their 
clay-built nests on some rock-face. Fuen-Caliente dates back to 
Roman days. Warm springs, as its name implies, here burst 
from riven rock, and stone baths, built by no modern hand, 
