The Asturian monarchs had good reason for fixing their capital at Oviedo; for it guards the main gateway of their kingdom, the chief of the passes to the south. It lies not indeed at the actual mouth of the valley, but a little on one side of it. Our road has to struggle over a couple of thousand-foot ridges ere it can lay its course straight for its goal. These two preliminary mountains we resolved to put behind us in the evening, and keep a clear day for the Pass of Pajares itself.
Our overture was by no means a trifle. It was dark when we began the second descent, and the iron furnaces of Miéres glowed up out of the black profundity beneath us like little volcano craters anxious to win themselves fame. Miéres is a village of ironworkers, and rather shabby and grimy in consequence: yet we were glad to gain its shelter, for the sky had long been threatening, and the storm broke soon after our arrival—a true mountain tempest, with the rain roaring on the roof like a cataract, and incessant flashes of lightning illuminating the valley with the brightness of day.
Storm succeeded storm throughout the night,{127} and the outlook next morning was far from promising. But we took our courage in both hands and started at the first break in the downpour. The valley was choked with mist, and the road in a state of unutterable slabbiness: yet our enterprise was soon rewarded, for the weather had done its worst in the darkness, and the sunshine brought the vapours steaming up out of the meadows and banished them with the clouds across the summits of the hills.
The symptoms of industrial activity do not extend far above Miéres, and Lena is but the quiet head village of a peaceful mountain glen. Lena is famous for the possession of the precious little eighth-century church of Sta Cristina, perhaps the most notable of the group for which the Oviedo district is renowned; and the scenery amid which it is situated is very similar to that of our own Welsh or Cumberland Highlands, though planned on a larger scale.
Hitherto the ascent has been gradual; but now the road takes to the side of the mountain, and heaves itself up from shoulder to shoulder in a vast skein of steadily rising zigzags; while the railway which has so far accompanied it wanders off by itself into remote lateral valleys, groping for an easy gradient{128} to help it up its four-thousand-foot climb. Twenty miles by road from Lena, and over thirty by rail, the approach to the summit is long and arduous, though redeemed by most lovely views. We have a vivid recollection of the glass of water which was bestowed upon us by the woman in charge of the level crossing at the foot of the final ascent. She was a Navarrese woman, and the water was the most delicious in the world!
At the final pitch the railway takes to a tunnel; and the road scrambles alone to the saddle, rewarding its clients with the most magnificent panorama,—looking out over the abysmal valley to the wilderness of pike and fell on the westward, where the rigid outlines of the Peña Ubiña are seldom destitute of snow. A rock-climber might break his neck very satisfactorily among these savage crags. One great aiguille in particular seems to challenge him by its sheer inaccessibility—a rocky splinter torn apart from its parent precipice, like another Napes Needle, but probably a thousand feet high. When the Alps have become unbearably Roshervilled, perhaps these untrodden fastnesses may solace the blasé mountaineer.
The step which carries us across the Pass of Pajares is one of the most decisive of any we have{129} yet taken. It spans the frontier of Leon and Asturias, the boundary of the realms of cloud and sun. The ridge parts not merely two provinces but two climates, and we seem to enter the tropics at a stride. Behind lies the green and flowery valley, and the heathery slopes half veiled in tender haze; before are the hot bare rocks, and the parched grass toasting itself under the stare of the sunshine; and though the Atlantic clouds bank thick upon the northward, it is only an occasional straggler who ventures across to the south.
The scenery is perhaps less attractive, but on the whole even more striking; for the rocks, as in all Spanish landscapes, take most daring and original forms. The most remarkable example is near the foot of the descent, just before arriving at the village of Pola de Gordon. Here the limestone strata have been tilted up absolutely vertical, hard layers alternating with soft, like the fat and lean in a piece of streaky bacon. The principal hard layer forms the precipitous face of a mountain, and stretches for a mile or more along the river, like a huge surcharged retaining wall. The complementary layers are at first buried in the mass behind; but presently the ridge dips to give passage to the river, and rises again beyond{130} in a bold conical hill, so that all the layers become at once exposed. The soft strata at this point are entirely weathered away, and the hard remain, like huge parallel cock’s-combs, rising as straight and steep as the parapets of a gigantic stairway. These razor-back limestone ridges are a very characteristic feature of Spanish mountain scenery; but nowhere else have I seen them quite so strongly marked as here.
We were not to escape from the Pass without one final downpour, but luckily it caught us within reach of shelter at Pola de Gordon. A black, oily cloud glued itself onto the mountain above the village, the windows of Heaven were opened, and the deluge fell. It only lasted some thirty minutes; but by that time the village was paddling, and all the bye-lanes had converted themselves into foaming torrents which had piled great dykes of shingle at intervals across the street. Yet all the while we had been able to see the sky clear and brilliant under the fringe of the storm-rack towards the southward; and three miles away, the road was dry and dusty, and even the river that ran beside it was unconscious of the coming flood.