At our evening meal, our host, as on the former occasion walked book-in-hand up and down the room, but was evidently less watchful of his pretty niece and silver spoons. His attention, indeed, appeared to be entirely given to the state of the mercury in an old barometer, which, appended to the wall at the further end of the room, he consulted at every turn, putting divers weatherwise questions to us as he did so. And at last, he asked in plain language, whether our church ever put up prayers for rain, and if they ever brought it.
The occasion of all this pumping we found to be, that the country in the neighbourhood having long been suffering from drought, the husbandmen, apprehensive of the consequences, had for some days past been urging him to pray for rain, but the state of the barometer had not hitherto, he said, warranted his doing so, and he had, therefore, put them off, on various pretences. “Yesterday, however,” he observed, “seeing that the mercury was falling, I gave notice that I should make intercession for them; and, I think, judging from present appearances, that my prayers are likely to be as effectual as those of any bishop could possibly be.” And off he started to church, giving us, at parting, a very significant, though somewhat heterodoxical grin.
Nevertheless, not a drop of rain fell that night; the barometer was at fault; and the only clouds visible in the morning were those gathered on the brow of the Cura. They dispersed, however, like mist under the sun’s rays; when, bidding him farewell, and thanking him for his hospitable entertainment, we slipped a doublon de à ocho into his hand; which, pocketing without the slightest hesitation, he assured us, with imperturbable gravity, should be applied to the services of the church—“as, doubtless, we intended.”
Threading once more the rudely graduated streets of the town, we took the stony pathway, before noticed, which winds down under the eastern side of the castle hill, and in rather more than half an hour were again beyond the limits of the Serranía, and in a country of corn and pasture.
At the foot of the mountain two roads present themselves, one proceeding straight across the country to San Roque and Gibraltar (nineteen and twenty-five miles), the other seeking more directly the Mediterranean shore, and visiting on its way the sulphur-baths and little town of Manilba.
The Cura had spoken in such terms of commendation of the Hedionda (fetid spring)—claiming it jealously as the property of Casares—that we were tempted to lengthen our journey by a few miles to pay it a visit.
The road to it follows the course of the little stream that flows in the valley between the Cristellina mountain and Casares, which, escaping by a narrow rocky gorge immediately below the town, winds round the foot of the castle crag, and takes an easterly direction to the Mediterranean. The country at first is open, and the stream flows through a smiling valley, without encountering any obstacle; but, at about two miles from Casares, a dark and narrow defile presents itself, which, the winding rivulet having in vain sought to avoid, finally precipitates itself into, and is lost sight of, under an entangled canopy of arbutus, lauristinus, clematis, and various creepers. So narrow and overshadowed is the chasm, so high and precipitous are its bank—themselves overgrown with coppice and forest-trees, wherever the crumbling rocks have allowed their roots to spread—that even the sunbeams have difficulty in reaching the foaming stream, as it hurries over its rough and tortuous bed; and the pathway, following the various windings of the narrow gorge,—now keeping along the shady bank of the rivulet, now climbing, by rudely carved zig-zags, some little way up the precipitous sides of the fissure,—is barely of a width to admit of the passage of a loaded mule.
So wildly beautiful is the scenery, so free from artificial embellishments,—for the low moss-grown water-mills which are scattered along the course of the stream, and here and there a rustic bridge, owe their beauty rather to nature than art—so romantic, in fine, is the spot, that, if in the vicinity of a fashionable baden, it could not fail of being a little fortune to all the ragged donkey-drivers within a circuit of many leagues, and of proving a mine of wealth to the surveyors of tables d’hôtes, and restaurans, and keepers of billiard and faro tables.
The amusements of the frequenters of the humble Hedionda are, however, very different, and the sequestered dell is visited only by chanting muleteers, driving their files of laded animals to or from the mills; or, perchance, by some sulphurated old lady, who, ensconced in a pillowed jamuga,[72] is bending her way, with renovated health, towards Casares or Ximena: to which places the narrow fissure offers the nearest road from the baths.
After proceeding about a mile down the dark ravine, its banks, crumbling down in rude blocks, recede from each other, and a huge barren sierra is discovered rising steeply along the southern bank of the stream, to which the road now crosses. It greatly excited our surprise how this lofty and strongly marked ridge could have escaped our observation from Casares, for it had seemed to us, that on descending from thence we should leave the mountains altogether behind us.