348 Unexplored Spain 
hamlet of Benamahoma, whence, housed in friendly quarters, we 
have oft explored this hill. The route to the summit (which 
may almost be reached on donkey-back) is by the southern face ; 
for summits, however, merely as such, we have no sort of 
affection, and never expend one ounce of energy in gaining 
them, unless they chance to aid a main objective. As to 
“views,” we are sure to enjoy these from other points quite as 
effective. 
New-fallen snow powdered the ground and mantled the 
surrounding peaks as we rode out of Benamahoma on March 20. 
But the sun shone bright, and from a poplar softly warbled a 
rock-bunting—with pearl-grey head, triple banded. Serins and 
kitty-wrens sang from the wooded slopes, 
and we observed long-tailed tits, with cirl- 
buntings and woodlarks. A grey wagtail 
by the burnside was already acquiring the 
black throat of spring. 
The tortuous track writhes upwards 
through sporadic cultivation—the angles at 
which these hill-men can work a plough 
amaze, beans and garbanzos grow on slopes 
where no ordinary biped could maintain a 
Vb foothold. The industry of mountaineers 
ROCK-BUNTING (here as elsewhere in Spain) is remarkable. 
(Emberiza cia) Each tillable patch, however small or abrupt, 
is reduced to service, its million stones 
removed and utilised to form the foundation for a tiny era, or 
threshing-floor (like a shelf on the hillside), whereon the hard-won 
crop is threshed with flails. Higher out on the hills rude stone 
sheilings are erected to serve as shelters during seed-time and 
harvest. Not even the hardy Norseman puts up a tougher tussle 
with nature to wrest her fruits from the earth. 
Presently one enters forests of oak and ilex with strange 
misshapen trunks, stunted and hollow, but decorated with 
prehensile convolvulus and mistletoe—many three-fourths dead, 
mere shells with cavernous interior, sheltering tufts of ferns. 
Here, instead of destroying the whole tree, charcoal-burners 
pollard and lop ; huge lateral limbs are amputated as they grow, 
and the result, during centuries, produces these montrosities, 
rarely exceeding twenty feet in height and surmounted by a 
