We finally slipped from the valley at the village{131} of La Robla, and mounted onto the bare, brown moorlands that slope towards the city of Leon. The mountains come to a halt behind us as abruptly as if they were toeing a line; and the vast level sweeping away from their feet to the southward is broken only by the deeply grooved valleys of the Esla’s tributary streams. The effect is somewhat similar to the line of the Merionethshire mountains breaking down into the Morfa. But this remarkable emphasising of primary physical features is specially characteristic of the geology of Spain. Leon itself lies low beside the river, and only comes into view when we are close upon it; but the cathedral spires are just high enough to overtop the upland, and form a solitary landmark for several miles around.{132}
CHAPTER VII
BENAVENTE, ZAMORA, AND TORO
THE Esla valley runs down broad and level from Leon towards the south; a monotonous umber-coloured valley, very different from the wild glens whence its waters are derived. The road is straight and featureless, though its newly-planted acacia avenues give some promise of ultimate redemption; and the mud-built wayside villages have a forlorn and collapsible air.
Occasionally one lights upon a regular troglodyte settlement, a group of bee-hive cellars excavated in the hillside, with the chimneys struggling out among the sparse herbage which covers them. These caves have no windows, and are lit only through the open doors, yet they continued to be the homes of the peasantry till within comparatively recent days. Indeed, in some few instances they are still inhabited; but generally they are utilised only as storehouses and stables, while the popula{133}tion has migrated bodily into the more modern cottages which have sprung up to form the village at their side.
The Esla itself is the most interesting item in the scenery. It flows parallel with the road some two or three miles to the left, close under the crumbling yellow cliffs which overlook the vale. Its course is marked by trees and greenery, chiefly the inevitable poplar; and its thin line of verdure, shot with flashes of sparkling water, is a welcome relief to the dun and dusty plain. The riverside hamlets plastered upon the face of the cliffs are so weather-nibbled and irregular, and so exactly the colour of the grounding, that they might be taken for some weird growth of parasitic fungus; and the whole scene has a most convincingly Nilotic air.
A short distance from Benavente occurred one of the few mishaps which it was our lot to occasion. An old countryman was jogging sleepily along the road before us with a mule and a donkey, when the animals suddenly took fright at our approach. A Spaniard is commonly a good horseman—when he is riding a horse. But he does not think it worth while to ride a donkey, so he merely sits on it,—sans reins, sans stirrups, with both his legs on one side, and no more control over his mount than{134} a sack of turnips. For a few strides our victim bounded wildly between his panniers like an animated shuttlecock; and then toppled over in ruin, while his beasts stampeded across the fields. We recaptured his fugitives for him, and purchased his broken eggs; but I fear that it somewhat soured our sympathy when we found him doing nothing but wring his hands and bewail his losses meanwhile. We could not help feeling that the “language” of an English teamster would have furnished a much more satisfactory solution of his woes.