f the Guadiaro--Our Fears Relieved--The Cork
Woods--Ride from San Roque to Gibraltar--Parting with Jose--Travelling
in Spain--Conclusion.

Gibraltar, _Thursday, November_ 25, 1852.

I passed an uncomfortable night at the Venta de Villalon, lying upon a bag
stuffed with equal quantities of wool and fleas. Starting before dawn, we
followed a path which led into the mountains, where herdsmen and boys were
taking out their sheep and goats to pasture; then it descended into the
valley of a stream, bordered with rich bottom-lands. I never saw the
orange in a more flourishing state. We passed several orchards of trees
thirty feet high, and every bough and twig so completely laden with fruit,
that the foliage was hardly to be seen.

At the Venta del Vicario, we found a number of soldiers just setting out
for Ronda. They appeared to be escorting a convoy of goods, for there were
twenty or thirty laden mules gathered at the door. We now ascended a most
difficult and stony path, winding through bleak wastes of gray rock, till
we reached a lofty pass in the mountain range. The wind swept through the
narrow gateway with a force that almost unhorsed us. From the other side,
a sublime but most desolate landscape opened to my view. Opposite, at ten
miles' distance, rose a lofty ridge of naked rock, overhung with clouds.
The country between was a chaotic jumble of stony hills, separated by deep
chasms, with just a green patch here and there, to show that it was not
entirely forsaken by man. Nevertheless as we descended into it, we found
valleys with vineyards and olive groves, which were invisible from above.
As we were both getting hungry, Jose stopped at a ventorillo and ordered
two cups of wine, for which he insisted on paying. "If I had as many
horses as my master, Napoleon," said he, "I would regale the Senors
whenever I travelled with them. I would have _puros_, and sweetmeats, with
plenty of Malaga or Valdepenas in the bota, and they should never complain
of their fare." Part of our road was studded with gray cork-trees, at a
distance hardly to be distinguished from olives, and Jose dismounted to
gather the mast, which was as sweet and palatable as chestnuts, with very
little of the bitter quercine flavor. At eleven o'clock, we reached El
Burgo, so called, probably, from its ancient Moorish fortress. It is a
poor, starved village, built on a barren hill, over a stream which is
still spanned by a lofty Moorish bridge of a s