Alorcus lodged in one of the inns in the suburb, an enormous edifice with extensive stables and broad courtyards, where continuously rang the diverse tongues of the interior of the Peninsula, hoarsened and made strident by dickering for merchandise and the bartering of beasts. Five men of the tribe accompanied the young Celtiberian during his stay in Saguntum, taking care of his horses and serving him as free domestics.
On learning that they were to depart these sons of the mountains shouted with joy. They had languished with inactivity in that rich and fruitful country amid customs which they detested, and they made preparations for the journey in haste.
The sun was setting when they started. Alorcus and Actæon rode in advance, their mantles thrown over their heads, padded linen breastplates to protect their chests after the Celtiberian fashion, and short broadswords, and leather shields hanging at their sides. The five servants and the messenger brought up the rear, armed with long lances, driving the mules laden with Alorcus' clothing and provisions.
Throughout the afternoon they traveled upon the roads, being still in the Saguntine domain, and they passed cultivated and fruitful fields, beautiful villas and compact little towns clinging close around the tower which served them as defense. When night closed in they camped close to a miserable village in the mountains. There the territory of Saguntum ended. Beyond lay the tribes which were almost constantly warring with the people of the coast.
Next morning the Greek beheld a wholly different landscape. The sea and the green plains lay behind him, and he saw only mountains and more mountains, some covered with great pine forests, others red, with bluffs of bluish stone, overgrown with dense thickets which, brushed by the passing caravan, sent forth clouds of frightened birds, while terrified rabbits scampered under the very horses' hoofs.
The trails were not the work of man. The beasts laboriously picked their way in the tracks left by former travelers; they often twisted around masses of rock fallen from the summits, and again they forded streams which ran across their path. They skirted mountains; they climbed heights into a silent region seldom penetrated by man, where eagles screamed, flapping their wings in anger at this invasion. They rode down into gorges, deep crevices, in which reigned a sepulchral penumbra and where buzzards hopped close by the dead body of some abandoned animal.
In the distance they saw beside a stream in a little valley, a group of mud-walled cabins with straw-thatched roofs, with an open hole to let light into the dwelling and to give exit to the smoke. The women, bony and dressed in skins, surrounded by naked children, came out of their hovels to stare at the passing caravan, with wild expressions of alarm as if the approach of strangers could only bring misfortune. Others younger, barelegged, with ragged aprons hanging from their waists, were reaping the stunted wheat, which barely rose like a golden film above the sterile, whitish earth. Girls, strong and ugly, with masculine limbs, came down from the mountains, bearing great bundles of fagots on their backs, while the men sat in the shade of nut and oak trees braiding bull-tendons for making their shields, or they practiced hurling, darts and handling the lance, their tangled hair falling over bronzed and bearded faces.
On the highest points along the way appeared warriors of doubtful aspect, a mixture of bandit and shepherd, armed with long lances and carrying leather shields, mounted on small horses with long and filthy hair. They looked the company over, and after measuring its strength, and seeing it would be difficult to conquer, they turned back to their sheep pasturing in the deep mountain gorges filled with a tangle of shrubbery. The innumerable flocks of lambs and herds of cattle, accustomed to the wild solitude, fled terrified as they heard the passing of the caravan. Bevies of quail ran in search of food like gray ants among the rosemary and thyme growing on the slopes, and flew away at the sound of the horses' hoofs, whirring like a hiss over the travelers' heads.
Actæon was interested in the rude customs of these people. The cabins were made of red adobe, or of stones laid in clay, and roofed with branches. The women, uglier and more energetic than the men, performed the fatiguing labor. Only boys worked, imitating their mothers. Young men early grasped the lance, and under the direction of their elders learned to fight on foot or on horseback; they broke the colts, springing to the ground, and mounting again while the horse was running, and they trained themselves to remain kneeling motionless on the horses' backs with their arms free to wield the sword and shield.
In some villages the party was received with traditional hospitality, and was welcomed even more affectionately on recognizing Alorcus, the heir of Endovellicus, the respected chieftain of the tribes of Baraeco which had pastured their flocks for centuries on the banks of the Jalón. When night came they gave up to them their best beds of woven thongs covered with fluffy dried grasses; they impaled a calf on a spit, turning it before an enormous bonfire, for regaling the caravan, and during the journey the women detained them at the entrance to their huts, offering them in coarse earthen vessels the bitter beer brewed in the valleys, and the bread made of acorn flour.