Permission to shoot in the forest is never refused to the British officers and inhabitants of Gibraltar. Indeed, excepting for the caza mayor,[41] the ceremony of asking leave is not considered necessary; and in the winter season the sotos afford good sport, woodcocks, ducks, and snipes, being very plentiful.
Turning now away from the Guadaranque, and leaving a spacious convent that gives its name to the forest, about half a mile on the left, the road inclines to the eastward, and soon reaches a large solitary building, the Venta del Aqua del Quejigo, but known more commonly amongst the English by the name of the Long Stables, and distinguished as the scene of many a festive meeting, and many a bacchanalian orgie, being a favourite place of rendezvous for a Batida.[42] My head aches at the very recollection of the nights passed within its walls. We will therefore pass on, and again plunge into the forest.
After proceeding about a mile, the road divides into two branches. That on the right hand is the most direct way to Gaucin, whither I am bending my steps; but the other, though little known, is the best, and offers more attractions to the lover of the picturesque. I will therefore take it, in the present instance, and advise all who may follow in my wake to do the like.
Continuing two miles further through the impervious forest, the road at length arrives at the brink of a deep ravine on the right, when a lovely view breaks upon the traveller, looking over a rich valley watered by the river Sogarganta, and towards the mountain fortress of Casares and lofty Sierra Bermeja. The road, hemmed in by steep banks, and still overshadowed by the forest, descends rather rapidly towards the before named river; and this narrow pass, being the only outlet from the forest in this direction, has, from its celebrity in days past as a place of danger, received the name of the Boca de Leones—mouth of the lions.
On emerging from the pass, a wide and carefully cultivated valley presents itself. The river which fertilizes it, here makes a considerable elbow; the chain of hills clothed by the Almoraima forest checking its southerly course, and directing it nearly due east towards the Mediterranean. To the north, the valley extends nearly ten miles, appearing to be closed by a conical mound that is crowned by the old castle of Ximena; the town itself being piled up on its eastern side.
The road to that place (eight miles) keeps along the right bank of the Sogarganta, which winds gracefully through the wide, flat-bottomed valley; but the track to Gaucin crosses by a ford to the opposite side of the stream, and, after advancing about four miles, inclines to the right, traverses a low range of hills, and comes down upon the river Guadiaro. This is crossed by means of a ferryboat, and leaving its bank, and proceeding in a northerly direction, the road passes over a gently undulated country for several miles, and then begins to ascend a high wooded ridge on the right hand.
The ascent is long and tortuous, but tolerably easy, and the view, looking towards Ximena (distant about five miles) is very grand and imposing. The castellated crag, so proudly conspicuous an hour before, is now, however, shorn of all its importance; the superior elevation of the point from whence it is viewed, as well as the magnificence of the mountains that rise to the westward of Ximena—which now first burst upon the sight—making it appear but a pebble at their feet.
But scenery of a more varied and yet more magnificent kind awaits the traveller, at the pass by which the road traverses the ridge that he has now been nearly an hour ascending.
The lovely valley of the Genal[43] is there spread out to his enraptured gaze. On the left, embosomed in groves of orange, citron, and pomegranate trees, and shadowed with clustering vines, stands the picturesque town of Gaucin,—its boldly outlined castle perched on the crest of a rough ledge of rock that rises abruptly behind.
Stretching some way down the eastern side of the cragged mound, the advanced battlements of the Moorish stronghold terminate at the brink of a frightful precipice, which not only forbids all approach to the town in that direction, but threatens even some day to close up the narrow valley it overhangs.