I must now return to El Burgo,—which place we were five hours in reaching, although its distance from Ronda is scarcely eleven miles; indeed, in the measure of the country, it is reckoned but two leagues.
El Burgo de Ronda (as it is generally called) is a miserable village, containing about 200 Vecinos; but it is most romantically situated, in a fertile plain encompassed with magnificent woods and mountains, and watered by numerous springs. We arrived thoroughly drenched, and were glad to halt for a short time, to breathe our horses and dry our cloaks. Towards noon, the weather becoming more propitious, we continued our journey to Casarabonela. The road is very bad all the way, though somewhat better than we had gone over in the morning. The scenery is not by any means so fine.
The direct road to Malaga avoids Casarabonela, leaving it, perched on the side of a steep mountain, some thousand feet above, and about half a mile off, on the right; but the view from the summit of the ridge overlooking the town is so grand, that I would strongly recommend all travellers to ascend the rugged mountain, even at the cost of an hour’s delay, and risk of a displaced collar-bone.
The little town, embosomed in groves of fruit-trees, lies about half way down the southern side of the mountain. On its right, and somewhat overlooking it, an old Moorish fortress occupies a cragged eminence; its smoked and shattered walls seeming, after the manner of its founders, to be mourning with dirt and ashes the loss of the rich plain spread out beneath; over which, in former days, they held despotic dominion.
This vast plain stretches south, to where the winding Guadaljorce discharges itself into the ocean; the Sierra Gibalgalía rising “like a huge incumbrance” from its centre, and sheltering the mouldering walls of the famed city of Cartáma. Along the eastern side of the valley, the mountains of Alhama, the Alpujarras, and snowy ridge of Granada, successively overtop the rugged ramifications of the Sierra of Almoxia, which bound it in that direction. To the west, the Sierras of Alhaurin and Mijas present themselves, rising abruptly from the plain. Between these two masses of mountains, and beyond the plain, a wide expanse of the blue and glassy Mediterranean is visible, studded with white sails, bearing the rich produce of Malaga to every part of the world.
The descent to the town is good, but tedious,—winding through luxuriant vineyards and orchards. The vines are here trained on frames raised about five feet from the ground; a method by no means general in Spain, and which, though certainly more pleasing to the eye, is not considered so favourable to the fruit as that usually adopted.
The Inn looked dirty and comfortless, and its keeper was so imbued with the constitutional doctrines of liberty and equality,—then much in vogue,—that he would hardly condescend to answer our questions concerning accommodation, and was perfectly indignant at our suggesting the expediency of his rising from his seat, and showing us the way to his stable.—“There was the door of his house if we chose to enter; if not, we had but to suit ourselves elsewhere.”
Aware that the town did not possess another posada, and that the nearest Venta on the road was at a distance of several leagues, the dignified innkeeper trusted, from the lateness of the hour, that we should necessarily be obliged to place ourselves at his mercy. We, on the other hand, determined, if possible, to obtain accommodation elsewhere, and seeing the lady-owner of the adjoining house standing at her door, asked her if she knew any one who, for a handsome consideration, would furnish us with a night’s lodging.
After a short parley, it was agreed that her house and stable should be placed at our “disposicion” for the night, and sundry of our hard dollars at her’s in perpetuity. The publican—who, pending the negociation, sat at his portal puffing a cigar, affecting the utmost indifference to its result, but in reality listening impatiently to every word that passed—no sooner found how good a thing had slipped through his fingers, than he started up in the most ungovernable passion, venting his rage upon our buxom hostess, somewhat in the following strain—“Mala Pascua te dé Dios! Hija de puta ruin![116]—May you be burnt for a witch before the year’s over, for taking the bread out of a neighbour’s mouth!—May the ghost of your cuckold husband appear at your bedside this night, you shameless wanton!—May”—“Que chusco es el tuerto!”[117] interrupted the incensed fair one, in a scream that completely drowned the rest of his good wishes, to whatever extent they may have been carried—“Look at home, Cabron,[118] ere you call an honest man cuckold, and a virtuous woman wanton.”—“Virtuous woman, indeed!” resumed he of the Venta; “and admits four smooth-chinned Ingleses into her house, to say nothing of their two stout grooms, and that monkey-faced Portuguese, their guide; whom I know right well, though he has grown fat under English feeding; and whom, fat or lean, no virtuous woman would suffer within reach of her nostrils.”
This unlooked-for attack on “lazy Antonio” drew a furious cross-fire upon the irritated Ventero; for whilst our hostess flinched not one inch from his direct and somewhat scandalous assault—par pari referens—“Vosse mercé” opened a fire of loud, nasal Portuguese-Spanish upon his flank, that exceeded in noise the braying of a whole troop of asses.