These rock-formations are superbly abrupt. Great detached crags, massive and moss-marbled, jut perpendicular from ragged steeps, or vast monoliths protrude, each in rectilineal outline so exact that one wonders if these are truly of nature’s handiwork, and not some fabled fortalice of old-time Goth or Moor. Despite its striking contour, however, its crags and precipices are too scattered and detached (with traversable intervals between) to attract such a rock-lover as the ibex, and no wild-goat has ever occupied the gorges of Despeñaperros.
A similar rock-region, but more extensive and continuous, is found near Fuen-Caliente—by name the Sierra Quintána. This range, though its elevations barely exceed 7000 feet, forms the only spot in the Sierra Moréna at which the Spanish ibex retains a foothold.
Thereat the writer in 1901 endured one of those evil experiences which from time to time befall those who seek hunting-grounds in the wilder corners of the earth. It was in mid-February that, forced by bitter extremity of weather, we fain sought refuge in the hamlet of Fuen-Caliente clinging at 5700 feet on the steep of the sierra, as crag-martins fix their clay-built nests on some rock-face. Fuen-Caliente dates back to Roman days. Warm springs, as its name implies, here burst from riven rock, and stone baths, built by no modern hand, attest a bygone enterprise. To this day, we are told, the baths of Fuen-Caliente attract summer-visitors; we trust their health benefits thereby. Surely some counter-irritation is needed to balance the perils of a sojourn within that unsavoury eyrie. We write feelingly, even after all these years, and after suffering assorted tribulations in many a rough spot—Fuen-Caliente is bad to beat.
Having tents and full camp-outfit, we had thought to live independent of the village posada. One night, however, as we climbed the rising ground that leads to the higher sierra there burst in our faces an easterly gale (levante), with driving snow-storms that even a mule could not withstand. Nothing remained but to seek shelter in the village below.
Here my bedroom measured twelve feet by four, with a door at each end. The door proper was reached by a vertical ladder; the second might perhaps be differentiated as a window, but could only be distinguished as such by its smaller size—both being made of solid wood. Thus, were the window open, snow swirled through as freely as on the open sierra; if shut, we lived in darkness dimly relieved by the flicker of a mariposa, that is, a cotton-wick reposing in a saucer of olive-oil. Under such conditions, with other nameless horrors, we passed three days and nights while gales blew and snow swirled by incessant.
On the fourth morning the wind fell, and snow had given place to fine rain. These levantes usually last either three or nine days; so, thinking this one had blown itself out, we packed the kit and set out in renewed search of ibex, Caraballo, with accustomed forethought, buying a bunch of live chickens, which hung by their legs from the after-pannier of the mule. On the limited area of Quintána, ibex offer the best chance of stalking.
Mules are marvellous mountaineers. The places that animal surmounted to-day passed belief. Two donkeys that belonged to the local hunters, Abad and Brijido, who accompanied us, soon got stuck, and had to be left below.
By three o’clock we, mule and all, had reached the highest ridge of Quintána, and encamped within a few hundred feet of its top-most riscos.
To set up a tent among rocks is never easy; even specially made iron tent-pegs find no hold, and guy-ropes have to be made fast, as securely as may be, to any projecting point.
Hardly had the sun gone down, than the easterly gale blew up again with redoubled force. All night it howled through our narrow gorge and around its pinnacled rock-minarets, with the result that at 11 P.M. the ill-secured guys gave way, and down came our tent with a crash. Two hours were spent (in drenching rain) remedying this; and when day broke, an icy neblina (fog) enveloped the sierra, shutting out all view beyond a few yards. The cold was intense, and a little dam we had engineered the night before was frozen thick. The fog held all that day and the next. Nothing could be done, though we persisted in going out each day, as in duty bound, for a few hours’ turn among the crags—how we prayed for one hour’s clear interval that might have given that glorious sight we sought! At dusk the second night snow fell heavily, and later on a thunderstorm added to our joys. Frequent and vivid flashes of lightning lit up the darkness, and caused the surviving chickens (which in common charity we had had tethered inside the tent) to crow so incessantly that sleep was impossible. Presently we noticed a sharp fall in temperature—the men had brought in a cube of ice, the solidified contents of one of our camp-buckets, which they proposed to melt at a little fire kept burning in the tent! But this was too much, even though it meant “no coffee for breakfast.”