40 ENVIRONS OF MALAGA. 



grapes, waited upon me, and we set out immediate]^. 

 Our road lay along the shore, to the eastward, the vine- 

 yard of Don Salvador Solier lying in that direction, at the 

 distance of about 14; miles. In the immediate vicinity of 

 Malaga the country is extremely rugged, but every patch 

 where it was possible to thrust in a plant was under culti- 

 vation. The rocks consisted of rugged masses of lime- 

 stone, alternating with the same kind of slaty schist I had 

 previously observed on the road from Antequera. For the 

 first two leagues there were few vineyards, chiefly owing 

 to the ruggedness of the country, which would not admit 

 of cultivation. Beyond that distance almost every hill 

 was covered with vines, the produce of which is all con- 

 verted into raisins. The grapes are all of the large white 

 Muscatel — the Muscatel Gordo of Roxas Clemente. This 

 grape, my companion informed me, does not succeed in 

 the interior, and therefore all the Muscatel raisins are 

 made within two leagues of the coast. The Lexia raisins, 

 which are used for puddings, &c., are made in the interior. 

 We arrived at the country-house of Don Salvador at nine 

 o'clock, and, after a substantial breakfast, sallied out to 

 examine the vines. Six or seven workmen were employed 

 in preparing the ground for planting, within a short dis- 

 tance of the house. They did not trench the whole of 

 the ground, but dug out square holes about two feet in 

 diameter, and not more than 20 inches in depth. The 

 distance of the centres of these holes from each other is 

 seven feet, and this is the distance at which the vines on 

 the hills round Malaga seem invariably to be planted. 

 The vineyard I was examining, as well as all those in its 

 vicinity, consisted of a series of steep hills. The soil 

 everywhere was a decomposed slate, mixed with abund- 

 ance of gravel of the same substance. On the higher 



