CHAPTER XXII 
AN ABANDONED PROVINCE 
(ESTREMADURA) 
Can this really be Europe—crowded Europe ? For four long 
days we have traversed Estremenian wilds, and during that time 
have scarce met a score of folk, nor seen serious evidence of 
effective human occupation. At first our northward way led 
through rolling undulations, the western foothills of the long 
Sierra Moréna, clad with the everlasting gum-cistus, with 
euonymus, a few stunted trees, and the usual aromatic brushwood 
of the south. Only at long intervals—say a league or two apart 
—would some tiny cot, of woodcutter perhaps, or goat-herd, 
gleam white amidst the rolling green monotone. Here and there 
wild-thyme (cantuéso) empurpled the slopes as it were August 
heather, but the chief beauty-spot was the rose-like flower of the 
cistus, now (May) in fullest bloom—waxy white, with orange 
centre and a splash like black velvet on each petal. Next, for a 
whole day we ride through open forest of evergreen oak and wild- 
olive, the floor carpeted with tasselled grasses, tufty broom, and 
fennel. We encamp where we list and cut firewood, none saying 
us nay or inquiring by what authority we do these things. 
One evening while we investigated an azure magpie’s nest in 
an ilex hard by the tents, four donkey-borne peasants appeared. 
Though they rode close by, yet they showed no sign, passing 
silent and incurious. The few natives we met hereabouts all 
seemed listless, apathetic, uncommunicative, in striking contrast 
with their sprightly southern neighbours beyond the hills in 
Andalucia. We read that Estremadura is a “ paludic ~ province 
and unhealthy ; possibly the malarial microbe has sapped energy. 
To forest, next day succeeded more rolling hills with ten-foot 
bush and scattered trees. From acrag-crowned ridge, the culminat- 
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