Excursions in the mountains of Ronda and Granada, with characteristic sketches of the inhabitants of southern Spain, vol. 2/2

by C. Rochfort‏ Scott

We hired three horses for the journey; that is to say, for any portion of it we might choose to perform on horseback: two for ourselves, and one to carry our portmanteaus, as well as the mozo charged with their care and our guidance.

We found, on enquiry, that by avoiding two or three towns lying upon the road, we could reach Cordoba without deviating much from the direct route to that city, whence we purposed continuing our journey to the capital by the diligence. We proceeded accordingly to Ronda, which place being in the kingdom of Granada, was open to us; and thither I will at once transport my readers, the road to it having already been fully described. After sojourning a couple of days at the little capital of the Serranía, comforting my numerous old and kind friends with the opinion (which the event, I was happy to find, confirmed), that the new enemy against which their country had to contend—the dreaded cholera—would not cross the mountain barrier that defended their city; we proceeded on our journey, taking the road to Puente Don Gonzalo, on the Genil, thereby avoiding Osuna, which lay upon the direct road to Cordoba, but in the infected district.

In an hour from the time of our leaving Ronda, we crossed the rocky gulley which has been noticed as traversing the fertile basin in which the city stands, laterally, bearing the little river Arriate to irrigate its western half, and in the course of another hour reached the northern extremity of this fruitful district. The hills here offer an easy egress from the rock-bound basin; but, though nature has left this one level passage through the mountains, art has taken no advantage of it to improve the state of the road, for a viler trocha is not to be met with, even in the rudest part of the Serranía.

The view of the rich plain and dark battlements of Ronda is remarkably fine.

After winding amongst some round-topped hills, the road at length reaches a narrow rocky pass, which closes the view of the vale of Ronda, and a long deep valley opens to the north, the mouth of which appears closed by a barren mountain, crowned by the old castle of Teba.

The path now undergoes a slight improvement, and, after passing some singular table-rocks, and leaving the little village of La Cueva del Becerro on the left, reaches the venta de Virlan. We, however, had inadvertently taken a track that, inclining slightly to the right, led us into the bottom of the valley, and in about four miles (from the pass) brought us to the miserable little village of Serrato. The proper road, from which we had strayed, keeps along the side of the hills, about half a mile off, on the left; and upon it, and three miles from the first venta, is another, called del Ciego. Yet a little further on, but situated on an elevated ridge overlooking the valley, is the little town of Cañete la Real.

From Serrato our road led us to the old castle of Ortoyecar, ere rejoining the direct route; which it eventually does, about a mile before reaching the foot of the mountain of Teba.

This singular feature is connected by a very low pass with the chain of sierra on the left, and, stretching from west to east about three-quarters of a mile, terminates precipitously along the river Guadaljorce. The road, crossing over the pass, and leaving on the right a steep paved road, that zig-zags up the mountain, winds round to the west, keeping under the precipitous sides of the ridge, and avoiding the town of Teba, which, perched on the very summit, but having a northern aspect, can only be seen when arrived at the north side of the rude mound; and there another winding road offers the means of access to the place.

The base of the mountain is, on this side, bathed by a little rivulet that flows eastward to the Guadaljorce, called the Sua de Teba. It is erroneously marked on the Spanish maps as running on the south side of the ridge, but the only stream which is there to be met with, is a little rivulet that takes its rise near Becerro and waters the valley by which we had descended; and it does not approach within a mile of Teba, but sweeps round to the eastward a little beyond the old castle of Ortoyecar, and discharges itself into the river Ardales.

The deep-sunk banks and muddy bottom of the Suda de Teba, render it impassable excepting at the bridge. This rickety structure is apparently the same which existed in the time of Rocca, who, in his “Memoirs of the War in Spain,” gives a very spirited account of the military operations of the French and serranos in this neighbourhood.