We pass a group of houses the colour of baked bread; the most arid-looking spot we have seen as yet. The gardens come to an abrupt end. The road rises slightly, and grey-green olive foliage over gnarled trunks throw a thin lacework of shadow on the dry earth.
The tartana stops.
We all get out.
The clerkly man goes east; the priest south; we, led by the pale Señor, west.
We were at the entrance of a village. It spread over a mound at the foot of the higher hills. It was like a pyramid with toy houses coloured yellow, orange, green and grey upon the ledges, and all around trees like those from a child's play box. The village was fronted by a line of houses painted a deep crimson-vermilion. An iron windmill for pumping water was placed on the extreme point of the mound.
The little Señor showed us through the village to his house and left us in the entrada, while he went to get beer. The room was decorated with wooden "art-nouveau" chairs, oleographs and an extremely bad oil painting of a bull with banderillas shedding much blood. On a cane table was a gramophone.
The little Señor had shut a door made on the system of a Venetian blind to keep out the sun, and presently the lattice-work was crowded with children trying to peer in at us.
The Señor returned preceded by a large English setter. He drew the corks of the beer and asked us to make ourselves at home.
"The house and all that is in it is at your service," he said in the phrase of Spanish courtesy.