F 
Our ‘‘Home-Mountains” 351 
stretching great white arms heavenward, as though in agonised 
appeal. The distant roar of an avalanche is a not infrequent 
sound throughout the mountain-land. 
The pins&po-forests of San Cristobal present one of the most 
striking mountain-landscapes in Andalucia. For some three 
miles they cover in a semicircle the whole scooped-out amphi- 
theatre of the mountain-side. Their dark-green masses, contrasted 
against the white rocks on which they grow—and in winter with 
yet whiter snow—cluster upwards, tier above tier, from below 
the 3000-feet level away to the extreme summit of the knife- 
CROSSBILL 
Wrestling with pine-cone. 
edged ridge above, say 5500 feet. Would that we could depict 
the beauty of the scene. 
Through these dark forests a track winds, and here again the 
evident industry of the mountaineers surprised. At intervals 
along this pathway lay great baulks of pine-timber (sleepers, 
planks, and poles), dressed and piled ready for transport. That 
such loads could be carried hence on donkey-back, or, were such 
possible, that the labour could be repaid, appeared incredible—so 
distant are markets and so heavy the cargo.* 
We had hoped to find in these forests a home of the Spanish 
crossbill, but not a sign of it rewarded our search. ‘To avail the 
? Pinsipo timber is fairly hard, but too ‘‘knotty” for general purposes, and it is useless 
for charcoal. Yet these glorious forests are being sacrificed wholesale because the wood 
affords “ good kindling” for the charcoal-furnace—can wasteful wantonness further go? That 
the only existing forests of the kind on earth should be ruthlessly destroyed for no single object 
but to provide £indding passes understanding. 
