Hope had told us a flattering tale concerning the attractions of Béjar. A Salamanca gentleman to whom we confided our intention of visiting it had kissed his finger-tips ecstatically at the mere mention of its name. “Muy bonita!”[25] he exclaimed. “Preciosa!!” And truly his adjectives were excusable; for a more charming situation for a mountain township it is almost impossible to conceive. A long knife-edged ridge is thrown out from the range at right angles. The one street is carried along its crest, and the houses cling to either side of it like panniers on the back of a mule. A great snowclad peak, one of the minor{175} summits of the Sierra, towers above the head of the ridge and gravely surveys the street from end to end; while the extreme point looks out over the wild hummocky country towards Ciudad Rodrigo, with the great masses of the Sierra de Gata and Peña de Francia surging up truculently above the lower hills. Béjar is a fragment of Tyrolean scenery dropped accidentally on the borders of Estremadura. Its buildings are nothing remarkable, but its situation is irreproachably picturesque.
The town was holding a little Fiesta of its own upon the day of our visit, and the advent of two pedlars with knapsacks was naturally accepted as a part of the show. Several anxious enquirers stopped us in the street to ascertain “what our honours were selling”; and the prevalent notion appeared to be that we were vendors of edible snails! Many of the country-folk had come in from the remoter villages and were attired in the quaintest of costumes. The women wore very brief skirts, which gave an exceedingly squat appearance to their sturdy thick-set figures. The men had tight black breeches and jerkins adorned with polished metal buttons; enormously broad leather belts something like the cuirasses of the{176} Roman legionaries, and forked leather aprons loosely strapped down their thighs. This weird type of dress we had already noticed at Salamanca; and for a hot climate it must be about the most unsuitable ever conceived by man.
The journey from Salamanca to Ávila entails a longer spell of Duero valley scenery than that from Salamanca to Béjar; and for the best part of a day we were perseveringly reeling off league after league of the same dry red plough lands which had already wearied us in the North. It was not till towards evening that the road at last began swerving and plunging upon the great ground-swell which ripples out into the plain from the feet of the Sierra de Guadarrama; and the huge granite boulders littered about among the stunted ilex and gorse which clothed the shaggy ridges apprised us that we had drawn within reach of the derelict moraines. Still as we held our course each successive wave bore us higher than its predecessor, till at last we looked down into a wide upland basin, and beheld the towers of Ávila rising proudly upon their daïs in the midst.