“‘Try not the path,’ the old man said.” And the path in question was steep and narrow and stony, wriggling up along the brink of the torrent and the brow of the precipice; the little party had done some nine hours’ journeying already, and the shades of night had fallen. Yet for them and their beasts it was but the fag end of their regular Monday tramp, and they made naught of it. Evidently when the “blue-eyed youth” flourishes off with his banner a-climbing the Picos, the maiden of Tresviso is not likely to be vastly impressed. She takes that walk with her grandfather on Sunday afternoons.
The inn at Urdon may be small, but at least it is commendably early. They sped their parting guest with the twilight, and I was well clear of the gorge before I caught my first glimpse of the sun. The mists had not yet bestirred themselves to gather on the sides of the mountains; and the whole line of peaks stood out sharp and clear as I{28} crossed the bridge at Abándames and headed westward up the left bank of the Cares, which joins the Deva at the waters-meet below the gorge.
Just beyond the gash that marks the exit of the Deva, a prominent peak, like a small cousin of the Matterhorn, stands out boldly into the centre of the valley. The river circles round from behind it, and the road once more plunges in among the roots of the hills.
But that the Deva cliffs still towered overwhelmingly in the memory, one would have declared it impossible for any ravine to be finer than this. Indeed, in many respects the Cares is complementary of its rival. Its rocks may be less terrific, but its slopes are more generously wooded, and its pale sea-green waters seem of ampler volume than the sister-stream. The river boils along beside the road in a deep, rocky trench—a series of rapids and pot-holes—a dangerous river for a swim; and every turn that it takes opens some new and wonderful vista—huge buttresses of precipitous limestone, and shaggy floods of pinewood pouring out of the gaps between.
The Cares gorge is hardly so long as the Deva’s; but it ekes out its interest in an appendix which is not much inferior to the text. The road begins{29} to heave itself slowly upward along the face of the mountain towards the saddle at the head of the valley; and every foot that it rises seems to magnify the grandeur of the opposing heights. Now at last the upper slopes of the Picos surge into sight above their terraced pedestal; and far away into the distance behind us ridge after ridge in endless series radiates out from the great central chaos which towers close and high across the vale. This final view from the culminating point of the roadway is one of the most striking of all.
In Spain it seems never permissible to travel entirely for pleasure. The gossips provide you a business if you have none ready to hand. In the Rioja district you are branded as a wine-bibber. In the Asturias you are promptly consigned to the mines. Such was my fate at Carreño, the little hamlet which sits astride the watershed. An aged crone was squatting on the hearth in the Venta, performing the functions of a meat-jack over the smouldering embers of the fire. She unhesitatingly diagnosed my profession, and at once began to reel off the local directory—Don Jorge, and Don Juan, and Don Jaime and his wife and family—all English mining engineers in the various villages around. Everybody seems to know everybody{30} else in Asturias and to speak of them familiarly by their Christian names. But this latter custom is practically universal in the Peninsula; and I have surprised myself figuring as Don Edgar on the strength of a second day’s stay.
However, rather to “mine aunt’s” bewilderment, I did not linger at Carreño. The descent to Cángas lay before me, and I was soon speeding on the way. This valley is of a less daring type of beauty than that which debouches at Abándames. It is wider, shallower, and shadier, and moulded in gentler curves. The Picos are still upon the left, but they are now growing more distant; and the most prominent feature is the parallel range upon the right, between them and the sea; a fine bold line of hills some four thousand feet high known as the Sierra de Cuera.
Presently I became conscious of an ox-cart. It was grinding along the road in front of me. I overhauled it rapidly, and was close up when it arrived at the turn. But when the road straightened, behold! it was entirely empty; and a second glance showed the cart-wheels peeping over the margin, and the driver gathering himself together out of the bushes beyond. The oxen, maddened by flies, had made a dash for a pool at the roadside,{31} and the whole equipage had incontinently turned turtle.
The accident was entirely the fault of the beasts, and one would not have been surprised if the man had been angry. But this rough-looking fellow took his mishap with admirable equanimity, and thanked me most impressively for my help in righting his cart. “Gracias a Dios that I was thrown clear!” said he, crossing himself, as I approached him. And he even spared some sympathy for his oxen, “Ah! but they annoy them greatly—the flies.” The Spanish peasant is not usually of a surly temper, and even a double back somersault may leave his manners in working trim. Once before it had been my lot to witness a similar accident in England, where the driver, just extricated from beneath his vehicle, was indignantly demanding his hat. The incident was not without humour, and was gratifying to a student of Dickens; but it struck me that “Gracias a Dios” was distinctly a happier phrase.
Cángas de Onis, the little town which was the goal of my day’s journey, boasts that it was once the capital of Spain. And so it was—in the sense that Caerleon was of England—for here Pelayo first established his modest court when all the{32} rest of the Peninsula was Mahommedan. The days of its greatness, however, are too remote to have left much trace. It still retains its lovely situation; but a few rude monastic fragments are the only relics left by its early kings. It boasts, however, one striking monument (more modern than Pelayo), in the grand old mediæval bridge; one of those lofty gable-shaped structures that are so typical of Southern countries, and perhaps, next to Orense, the finest example of its kind in Spain. Like most of its class, it is now little used, for the modern bridge is but a few yards distant. And, indeed, none of them could ever have accommodated wheel traffic, for they are steep and narrow, and frequently innocent of parapets. Bar archery, one can well believe that Diego Garcia de Paredes with his two-handed sword might have held such a pass against a host; though (in justice to that doughty warrior’s modesty, so highly commended by the curate) I believe his autobiography never states that he actually did.