The Old Castle, called La Mota, is a Moorish work, which the French strengthened by some interior retrenchments. The city, though sunk in a deep hollow, stands high as compared with the surrounding country; the springs on the opposite sides of the chain on which it is situated falling to the Guadalquivir and Genil respectively. The streets are tolerably wide and well paved, but steep; the plaza is spacious, and rather handsome; the Alameda is shady, and abounding in fountains; and the Posada vile, and overrun with vermin. The population may be estimated at 4000 vecinos escasos,[155] or 20,000 souls, including the inmates of six large convents.
On our next day’s journey, to Castrò el Rio, we were most disagreeably convinced of the little dependence that can be placed on the information of the peasantry respecting distance. They invariably compute space by time; an hour’s ride being reckoned one league. As, however, the rate at which their animals travel is by no means the same, their computation of distance varies accordingly; so that a man possessed of a good mule reckons that distance seven leagues, which the owner of the more tardy burro estimates at nine. To exemplify this by our own case—we set out from Alcalà under the impression, received overnight from information obtained from a party of arrieros—that the distance to Baena was seven leagues. After riding an hour we overtook two peasants, mounted on sorry animals, who told us it was still seven leagues. Ten minutes after, (fancying we must have taken a wrong road) we questioned a priest, bestriding a sleek mule, and learnt that it was four leagues to Baena, or five from a knoll some hundred yards behind us. In another hour the distance had increased to four leagues and three quarters; but for the next hour and a half, we proceeded in the proper descending progression, until we had reduced the distance to three leagues, and a shrug of the shoulders, implying good measure.
With this radius, and Baena as a centre, we were doomed to describe the arc of a circle for two tedious hours; and at length, by a figure which it would be difficult to explain geometrically, found ourselves suddenly within a league and a half of our destination. From this stage, our journey diminished pretty regularly to its end, excepting that we were a quarter of a league from that desideratum before we were half of one!
I think the real distance may be reckoned twenty-four English miles; for it occupied us seven hours to accomplish. The country is rough and intricately broken, without being elevated; and it is devoid of much interest. The road is a mere mule track, (for from Alcalà the Madrid road proceeds to Alcaudete) and must be almost impassable in winter, as well from the stiff, clayey nature of the soil, as from the depth of the mountain rivulets which have to be forded, and which are very numerous. The plains, which here and there present themselves, are well, that is generally, cultivated; producing corn chiefly. The line of beacon-towers is continued along the points of the distant hills.
The town of Alcaudete (distant three leagues from Alcalà) lies about six miles off the road on the right; and Luque (some little distance farther on) stands on a slight eminence, about a mile and a half off, on the left.
On drawing near Baena, the country becomes wooded with olives, and the hills lose somewhat of their asperity. It is a large town, containing 1000 Vecinos, and stands on the side of a rugged mound, overhanging the right bank of the little river Marbella. The summit of the crag, in the usual Moorish fashion, is crowned by an old castle, the enceinte of which is rather extensive. The walls of the town are also standing, and, within the last few years, have been plastered up and loop-holed, to enable them to resist a coup de main, or an attack of cholera.
Baena is another town to which antiquaries are puzzled to affix a Roman name. By some it is imagined to be Ulia; but this I do not think at all likely, for, in the first place, the Itinerary of Antoninus makes Ulia distant but eighteen Roman miles from Cordoba, whereas Baena is, at least, thirty two; and, in the next, because Cæsar, who, on his second coming to Spain, found his own army assembled at Obulco, (Porcuna) and that of his adversaries besieging Ulia,[156] would scarcely have ventured to make a flank movement on Cordoba, to draw Cneus Pompey from the siege of Ulia, leaving his own magazines exposed to the enemy within half a day’s march of that place. Had he been strong enough to act in the bold manner this would imply, it seems more probable that he would have marched at once with his whole army to the relief of the beleaguered fortress. It strikes me, as being more probable, that Baena is the Baebro of Pliny, enumerated by that author (amongst the towns of note on the left bank of the Guadalquivir) next in order to Castra Vinaria, now Castrò el Rio.
The last Moslem King of Granada, the “luckless” Boabdil, made prisoner at the battle of Lucena, (A.D. 1483), was confined for some time in the castle of Baena; in which also the banners and other trophies, taken on the field of battle, were deposited by the victor, the enterprising Conde de Cabra.
The accommodation of the Posada we found very hard; so, after exploring the place, and attempting to take a Siesta, we proceeded on to Castrò El Rio. The distance from Baena to this place is two very short leagues—scarcely more than six miles. The road, during the greater part of the way, is along the confined valley of the Marbella; but, on approaching Castrò, the bounding hills gradually lose themselves in an extensive plain, that stretches along the winding course of the River Badajocillo.
Castrò El Rio has all the appearance of a very ancient place, and almost all accounts agree in placing at this spot the Roman city of Castra Vinaria, called, in some authors, Castra Postumii.[157] It is now an insignificant and thinly populated place, having little or no trade; and most of the land in its vicinity is laid out in pasture. The River Badajocillo, or Guadajoz, washes its walls, and, by many, is supposed to be the Salsus, so frequently mentioned in the “Spanish war” of Hirtius; but without any reason, that I have been able to discover, if we are to place reliance in that author’s description of the river and adjacent country.