By some Spanish antiquaries, Olbera has been supposed to be the Ilipa mentioned in the Roman Itinerary, as being on the second route laid down between Cadiz and Cordoba, passing by Antequera. This route, by the way, is not a less strange one to lay down between the two cities, than a post road from London to Dover by way of Brighton would be considered by us; but the fancy of winding it through the least practicable part of the mountains of Ronda, from Seville (if, as some imagine, it first went to that city) to Antequera, is even yet more strange, since a nearly level tract of country extends between those two cities in a more direct line.
Considering it, however, merely as a military way, made by the Romans to connect the principal cities of the province, and serving in case of need as a communication between Cadiz and Cordoba, avoiding Seville; a much more probable line may be laid down, on which the distances will be found to agree infinitely better.[58]
Olbera is a wretched place, containing some 3,000 or 4,000 of the rudest looking, and, if report speak true, of the least scrupulous, inhabitants of the Serranía. Their lawless character has already been alluded to, and, in Rocca’s Memoirs, a most interesting account is given of their reception of him, when, with a party of dragoons, he was on the march from Moron to Ronda.
His description of the rickety old town-house, wherein he saved his life from an infuriated mob by making a fat priest serve as a shield, is most correctly given, and, in the present dark, suspicious-looking, cloak-enveloped inhabitants, one may readily picture to one’s-self the descendants of the men who skinned a dead ass, and gave it to the French troopers for beef; ever after jeering them by asking “Quien come carne de burra en Olbera? Who eats asses’-flesh at Olbera?”
| Carula (Puebla de Santa Maria) | 24 |
| Ilipa (Grazalema) | 18 |
| Ostippo[59] (La Torre de Alfaquime) | 14 |
| Barba (Almargen) | 20 |
| Anticaria (Antequera) | 24 |
| Angellas | 23 |
| Ipagro | 20 |
| Ulia | 10 |
| Cordoba | 18 |
| Total | [60]294 |
The view from the old castle is very commanding; the outline of the amphitheatre of mountains is bold and varied, and the valleys between the different masses are richly wooded. To the south may be seen the rocky little fortress of Zahara, sheltered by the huge Sierra del Pinar; and only about two miles distant from Olbera to the north, is the old castle of Pruna, similarly situated on a conical hill that stands detached from a lofty impending mountain.
Olbera is fourteen miles from Ronda. At the distance of rather more than a mile, a large convent, N. S. de los Remedios, stands on the right of the road, and a little way beyond this, the road descends by a narrow ravine towards La Torre de Alfaquime, and, after winding round the foot of the cone whereon that little town is perched, reaches and crosses the Guadalete. This point is about four miles from Olbera. The stream issues from a dark ravine in the mountains that rise up on the left of the road, and serves to irrigate a fertile valley, and turn several mills that here present themselves.
A road to Setenil is conducted through the narrow gorge whence the little river issues, but that to Ronda, ascending for three quarters of an hour, reaches the summit of a lofty mountain on whose eastern acclivity are strewed the extensive ruins of Acinippo.