Wanderings in Spain

by Théophile Gautier

Of course, there are a great many exceptions to these remarks, as there are to all other generalities. There are, doubtless, many Spaniards who are active, laborious, and sensible to all the refinements of life, but what I have said conveys the general impression felt by a traveller after a stay of some little time,—an impression which is often more correct than that of a native observer, who is less struck by the novelty of the various circumstances.

As our curiosity was satisfied with regard to Granada and its buildings, we resolved, from having had a view of the Sierra Nevada at every turn we took, to become more intimately acquainted with it, and endeavour to ascend the Mulhacen, which is the most elevated point of the whole range. Our friends at first attempted to dissuade us from this project, which was really attended with some little danger, but, on seeing that our resolution was fixed, they recommended us a huntsman named Alexandro Romero, as a person thoroughly acquainted with the mountains, and possessing every qualification to act as guide. He came and saw us at our casa de pupilos, and his manly, frank physiognomy, immediately pre-possessed us in his favour. He wore an old velvet waistcoat, a red woollen sash, and white linen gaiters, like those of the Valencians, which enabled you to see his clean-made, nervous legs, tanned like Cordovan leather. Alpargatas of twisted rope served him for shoes, while a little Andalusian hat, that had grown red from exposure to the sun, a carbine and a powder-flask, slung across his shoulder, completed his costume. He undertook to make all the necessary preparations for our expedition, and promised to bring, at three o'clock, the next morning, the four horses we required, one for my travelling companion, one for myself, a third for a young German who had joined our caravan, and a fourth for our servant, who was intrusted with the direction of the culinary department. As for Romero he was to walk. Our provisions consisted of a ham, some roast fowls, some chocolate, bread, lemons, sugar, and a large leathern sack, called a bota, filled with excellent Val-de-Peñas, which was the principal article in the list.

At the appointed hour, the horses were before our house, while Romero was hammering away at the door with the butt-end of his carbine. Still scarcely awake, we mounted our steeds, and the procession set forth, our guide running on beforehand to point out the road. Although it was already light, the sun had not risen, and the undulating outlines of the smaller hills, which we had passed, were spread out all around us, cool, limpid and blue, like the waves of an immovable ocean. In the distance, Granada had disappeared beneath the vapourized atmosphere. When the fiery globe at last appeared on the horizon, all the hill-tops were covered with a rosy tint, like so many young girls at the sight of their lovers, and appeared to experience a feeling of bashful confusion at the idea of having been seen in their morning déshabille. The ridges of the mountain are connected with the plain by gentle slopes, forming the first table-land which is easily accessible. When we reached this place, our guide decided that we should allow our horses a little breathing time, give them something to eat, and breakfast ourselves. We ensconced ourselves at the foot of a rock, near a little spring, the water of which was as bright as a diamond, and sparkled beneath the emerald-coloured grass. Romero, with all the dexterity of an American savage, improvised a fire with a handful of brush-wood, while Louis prepared some chocolate, which, with the addition of a slice of ham and a draught of wine, composed our first meal in the mountains. While our breakfast was cooking, a superb viper passed beside us, and appeared surprised and dissatisfied at our installing ourselves on his estate, a fact that he gave us to understand by unpolitely hissing at us, for which he was rewarded by a sturdy thrust with a sword-stick through the stomach. A little bird, that had watched the proceedings very attentively, no sooner saw the viper disabled, than it flew up with the feathers of its neck standing on end, its eye all fire, and flapping its wings, and piping in a strange state of exultation. Every time that any portion of the venomous beast writhed convulsively, the bird shrunk back, soon returning to the charge, however, and pecking the viper with its beak, after which it would rise in the air three or four feet. I do not know what the serpent could have done, during its lifetime, to the bird, or what was the feeling of hatred we had gratified by killing the viper, but it is certain that I never beheld such an amount of delight.

We once again set out. From time to time we met a string of little asses coming down from the higher parts of the mountains with their load of snow, which they were carrying to Granada for the day's consumption. The drivers saluted us, as they passed by, with the time honoured "Vayan Ustedes con Dios," and we replied by some joke about their merchandise, which would never accompany them as far as the city, and which they would be obliged to sell to the official who was entrusted with the duty of watering the public streets.

We were always preceded by Romero, who leaped from stone to stone with the agility of a chamois, and kept exclaiming, Bueno camino (a good road). I should certainly very much like to know what the worthy fellow would call a bad road, for, as far as I was concerned, I could not perceive the slightest sign of any road at all. To our right and left, as far as the eye could distinguish, yawned delightful abysses, very blue, very azure and very vapoury, varying in depth from fifteen hundred to two thousand feet, a difference, however, about which we troubled our heads very little, for a few dozen fathoms more or less made very little difference in the matter. I recollect with a shudder a certain pass, three or four pistol-shots long and two feet broad,—a sort of natural plank running between two gulfs. As my horse headed the procession, I had to pass first over this kind of tight-rope, which would have made the most determined acrobats pause and reflect. At certain points there was only just enough space for my horse's feet, and each of my legs was dangling over a separate abyss. I sat motionless in my saddle, as upright as if I had been balancing a chair on the end of my nose. This pass, which took us a few minutes to traverse, struck me as particularly long.

When I quietly reflect on this incredible ascent, I am lost in surprise, as at the remembrance of some incoherent dream. We passed over spots where a goat would have hesitated to set its foot, and scaled precipices so steep that the ears of our horses touched our chins. Our road lay between rocks and blocks of stone, which threatened to fall down upon us every moment, and ran in zigzags along the edge of the most frightful precipices. We took advantage of every favourable opportunity, and although advancing slowly we still advanced, gradually approaching the goal of our ambition,—namely, the summit, that we had lost sight of since we had been in the mountains, because each separate piece of table-land hides the one above it.

Every time our horses stopped to take breath, we turned round in our saddles to contemplate the immense panorama formed by the circular canvas of the horizon. The mountain tops which lay below us looked as if they had been marked out in a large map. The Vega of Granada and all Andalusia presented the appearance of an azure sea, in the midst of which a few white points that caught the rays of the sun, represented the sails of the different vessels. The neighbouring eminences that were completely bare, and cracked, and split from top to bottom, were tinged in the shade with a green-ash colour, Egyptian blue, lilac and pearl-grey, while in the sunshine they assumed a most admirable and warm hue similar to that of orange peel, tarnished gold or a lion's skin. Nothing gives you so good an idea of a chaos, of a world still in the course of creation, as a mountain range seen from its highest point. It seems as if a nation of Titans had been endeavouring to build some sacrilegious Babel, some prodigious Lylac or other; that they had heaped together all the materials and commenced the gigantic terraces, when suddenly the breath of some unknown being had, like a tempest, swept over the temples and palaces they had begun, shaking their foundations and levelling them with the ground. You might fancy yourself amidst the remains of an antediluvian Babylon, a pre-Adamite city. The enormous blocks, the Pharaoh-like masses, awake in your breast thoughts of a race of giants that has now disappeared, so visibly is the old age of the world written in deep wrinkles on the bald front and rugged face of these millennial mountains.

We had reached the region inhabited by the eagles. Several times, at a distance, we saw one of these noble birds perched upon a solitary rock, with its eye turned towards the sun, and immersed in that state of contemplative ecstasy which with animals replaces thought. There was one of them floating at an immense height above us, and seemingly motionless in the midst of a sea of light. Romero could not resist the pleasure of sending him a visiting card in the shape of a bullet. It carried away one of the large feathers of his wing, but the eagle, nothing moved, continued on his way with indescribable majesty, as if nothing had happened. The feather whirled round and round for a long time before reaching the earth; it was picked up by Romero, who stuck it in his hat.

Thin streaks of snow now began to show themselves, scattered here and there, in the shade; the air became more rarified and the rocks more steep and precipitous; soon afterwards, the snow appeared in immense sheets and enormous heaps which the sun was no longer strong enough to melt. We were above the sources of the Gruil, which we perceived like a blue ribband frosted with silver, streaming down with all possible speed in the direction of its beloved city. The table-land on which we stood is about nine thousand feet above the level of the sea, and is the highest spot in the range with the exception of the peak of Veleta and the Mulhacen, which towers another thousand feet towards the immeasurable height of heaven. On this spot Romero decided that we should pass the night. The horses, who were worn out with fatigue, were unsaddled; Louis and the guide tore up a quantity of brushwood, roots, and juniper plants to make a fire, for although in the plain the thermometer stood at thirty or thirty-five degrees, there was a freshness on the heights we then occupied, which we knew would settle down into intense cold as soon as the sun had set. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon; my companion and the young German determined to take advantage of the daylight that remained, to scale alone and on foot the last heights of the mountain. For my own part, I preferred stopping behind; my soul was moved by the grand and sublime spectacle before me, and I busied myself in scribbling in my pocket-book sundry verses, which, if not well turned, had, at least, the merit of being the only alexandrines composed at such an elevation. After my strophes were finished, I manufactured some sorbets with snow, sugar, lemon and brandy, for our dessert. Our encampment presented rather a picturesque appearance; our saddles served us for seats, and our cloaks for a carpet, while a large heap of snow protected us from the wind. A fire of broom blazed brightly in the centre, and we fed it by throwing in, from time to time, a fresh branch which shrivelled up and hissed, darting out its sap in little streams of all colours. Above us, the horses stretched forward their thin heads, with their sad, gentle eyes, and caught an occasional puff of warmth.

Night was rapidly approaching. The least elevated mountains were the first to sink into obscurity, and the light, like a fisherman flying before the rising tide, leapt from peak to peak, retiring towards the highest in order to escape from the shade which was advancing from the valleys beneath and burying everything in its bluish waves. The last ray which stopt on the summit of the Mulhacen hesitated for an instant; then, spreading out its golden wings, winged its way like some bird of flame into the depths of heaven and disappeared. The obscurity was now complete, and the increased brilliancy of our fire caused a number of grotesque shadows to dance about upon the sides of the rocks. Eugene and the German had not returned, and I began to grow anxious on their account; I feared that they might have fallen down some precipice or been buried beneath some mass of snow. Romero and Louis already requested me to sign a declaration to the effect that they had neither murdered nor robbed the two worthy gentlemen, and that, if the latter were dead, it was their own fault.