‘Tis a long up-grade grind to the Peñones, but repaid by magnificent views of the Picácho de la Veleta—its scarped outline gloriously offset against the deepest azure and its 1000-foot sheer drop vanishing to unseen depths in the mysterious “corral” beneath—an inspiring scene.
Beyond to the eastward towered the mountain-mass, Mulahacen—perpetuating the name of that Moslem chief whose remains, so tradition records, yet lie in some unknown glacial niche in this the loftiest spot of all the Spains. There they were laid to rest by the fond hands of Zoraya, at the dying request of her husband the penultimate Moorish king, Muley-Hacen.
Our upward course led through beds of dwarf-juniper, thick strong stems all flattened down horizontally by the weight of winters’ snows, precisely as one sees them on the high fjelds of Norway. Here, both to-day and yesterday, we observed ring-ouzels, doubtless nesting amid the dense covert.
We soon picked up our friends of yesterday—small hedge-sparrow-like birds with blue-grey throat, striated back, and red patches on either flank, the alpine accentor. At first they were fairly tame, allowing us to watch and sketch them perched on lowly shrub or rock, warbling a sweet little carol (louder, but otherwise resembling that of our hedge-sparrow), or darting to pick up a straying ant. After a while that confidence, though wholly unabused, vanished; they became wild and cautious, refusing to allow us a single specimen! These birds were evidently paired, but showed no signs of nesting. Alas, that a drawing by Commander Lynes depicting the scene with the Picácho de la Veleta in the background refuses to “reproduce”!
These were the only accentors we saw, nor did we see to-day or any other day a single snow-finch.
An Alpine Farm.—The lands of San Gerónimo (where we were quartered) extend up the Monachil to either watershed—a length of 4½ leagues, while the breadth cannot average less than two. The acreage we leave to be calculated by those who care for such detail. At this date (early May) certainly one-half lay under snow, which still encumbered the higher patches of cultivation—to-day we saw men unearthing last autumn’s crop of potatoes well above the snow-line. At lower levels some corn already stood six inches high, but many “fields” were necessarily, as yet, unploughed. Fields, by the way, were separated not, as at home, by hedges, but sometimes by a sheer drop of 500 or 1000 feet, elsewhere by perpendicular rock-faces or by shale-shoots. But the laborious cultivation missed not one level patch—nor unlevel either, since we saw ox-teams ploughing where one wondered if even a cat could maintain a footing.
This is the highest farm in Neváda, possibly in all Spain. The house stands at 6000 feet and the lands extend to the Veleta, 11,597 feet. It provides grazing for goats and sheep, as well as a small herd of cattle, and thus affords permanent employment to several herdsmen. But at seed-time and harvest it employs as many as twenty or thirty men who, with their dependents, live in rude esparto-thatched huts scattered over the whole fifteen miles, and it was the numbers of these (assembled for pay-day) that had caused us some consternation on our first arrival! The value of the farm, we were told, is put at £8000 Spanish, representing some £400 as yearly rental.
Two years before, wolves had become such a pest to the flocks that strychnine was universally resorted to, with the result that to-day not a wolf is to be seen in the whole sierra. Foxes also perished, and the guarda, Manuel Gallegos, told us that he had thus obtained several wild-cats (Gatos montéses) whose skins fetched 20 pesetas apiece as ladies’ furs. The following day we chanced on a dead marten-cat, evidently killed by poison; and on showing it to Manuel with the remark that that was not a gato montés, he replied: “No, señor, that is a garduño; pero lo mismo da” = “it’s all the same!” Accuracy in definition is not a strong point with Manuel, nor indeed is it with any of our Spanish friends.
Martens are the commoner animal in Neváda; there may, nevertheless, be a few true wild-cats, and there certainly are some lynxes. The four-footed fauna of Neváda is sadly limited. There are neither deer of any kind—red, roe, or fallow—nor wild-boar. Bare rocks afford no covert for these: there is, of course, one compensating equivalent in the ibex. Small game is equally conspicuous by its absence. Local cazadores (each of whom, of course, possesses a decoy-bird—reclamo) enlarge on the abundance of partridge and hares, yet we saw hardly any game whether here on the Monachil, on the Genil, Darro, or at any of the points whereon we have explored the Sierra Neváda. There must, however, be a sprinkling to maintain the golden eagles and peregrines, both of which birds-of-prey we observed.
