“There is no alternative,” said José, “I must take your honour to shelter in the Venta del Albercón. It is only half a league out of the way, but if we do not find shelter we shall be drowned. What a fool I was to allow your honour to leave Algodonales, but I did it for the best, and Salvador agreed that the storm would not come up before to-morrow.”
Long before we got to the venta we were wet to the skin. The rain fell in one unbroken sheet, through which streaks of lightning dazzled us at appallingly frequent intervals, accompanied by peals of thunder which sounded perfectly terrific in their reverberations among the hills.
As soon as possible José led the way down to the banks of the stream, and dragged the animals across at the risk of breaking their legs among the rough stones that filled the bed. Already the biggest stones were almost covered, and José said that if we delayed to cross till we got to the ford the river would be up to our necks. Thence we made our way, I hardly know how, through the oleanders and brambles to what was really only a goat-track some twenty feet or so up the bank, and by this time the situation was so critical that José ceased to apologise, for all his energies were devoted to urging on the terrified beasts. Fortunately they knew and loved him, and his caressing voice soothed even the mule, which was young and got half wild with terror when the lightning flashed in its eyes.
We passed the ford where the Algodonales track crossed a by-road from Olvera to Villamartín, leaving it on our left. It was already a raging torrent eight to ten feet deep and rising higher every minute, and all the little tributary water-courses which had been stony wastes when we started were now turbid streams, rushing down to swell the flood. I have never seen anything to equal the rapidity with which the waters gathered, and I really began to wonder whether José and I would ever be seen again by our respective families, for it seemed as if at any moment we might be overwhelmed by an avalanche of stones and shale tumbled down from the peaks above us by those nightmare torrents which had suddenly sprung into being where an hour ago all was dust-dry. It also crossed my mind that my family, who were away in England, had not the remotest idea where I was, my trip having been a sudden inspiration of which I had not informed them; and I pictured my friend Rosario distractedly seeking my corpse in company with the widow and children of José (I learnt afterwards that he was a bachelor) and wildly telegraphing to break the news, hampered by having no notion of my family’s address.
Fortunately these gloomy forebodings were not fulfilled. A peal of thunder that seemed to shake the whole world, and a flash of lightning so close over our heads that we were almost blinded, heralded our arrival at the venta, and in a moment I found myself lifted off the donkey and half carried into the cottage by the kindly people within, while José slipped the panniers—which would not pass through the door—off his mule, and led the two poor, frightened, half-drowned beasts through a clean white-washed kitchen into a roomy stable beyond, where he patted and soothed them until they were quite quiet and happy, before he gave a thought to his own comfort. The storm had come up so suddenly that although he had dragged out an extra wrap for me, he had been unable or unwilling to stop and put on his own blanket, which was in the panniers under my luggage, and all my persuasions had failed to induce him to take mine, which had been thrown over the luggage, when we started, to protect my camera from the sun.
There is an impression abroad that Spaniards are not kind to their animals, but this is a great mistake.
“How should we not do the best we can for our donkeys, when we depend on them for our livelihood?” one of my arrieros remarked on my praising his tender care of an injured mule.
True one often sees even quite young and active mules and donkeys in the villages of the Sierra with their knees badly broken; but when one realises that most of their work has to be done on tracks such as I have endeavoured to describe—for, thanks to the neglect of the governing classes, there are thousands of villages in Spain which can only be reached by such paths—one has to admit that it is a wonder that the condition of the beasts of burden is no worse. And indeed I know for a fact that many poor men working on the land never let their donkeys go hungry while they have a bite of bread for themselves, so that my heart often aches to see the animals thin and out of condition, knowing it means there is want in the home.
Having all my luggage with me (a further advantage of travelling on donkey-back) I was able to get out of my wet clothes at once, and while I changed in a roomy loft over the kitchen, where the family slept and kept their corn, beans, winter melons, and other stores, the pretty daughter of the ventera told me that although autumn and winter storms were frequent enough on these hills, they had never known one come up so suddenly or with such rapidity so early in the season. We learnt afterwards that it was indeed rather a cyclone than an ordinary thunderstorm, and that it did terrible damage on the other side of the range of mountains, flooding an entire village on a river bank, and drowning an unfortunate gipsy family encamped under a bridge in the bed of the stream, which no one expected any water to reach until at least a month later.