there with tolerant notions, and thinking
the treatment of these tribesmen unjust, cultivated the acquaintance of
many of them. But he said he soon had to give them up. Their language,
their thoughts, their sentiments, their mode of life, were alike
disgusting. He understood why that low-grade _puta_ who had been
offered marriage by a wealthy _Chueta_ had spat in his face by way
of answer. They were utterly unfit to associate with. It was the old
tale: kick a dog for centuries and he becomes an utter cur, and cur he
will remain for centuries to come. And yet by a ghastly irony, the most
devout of the devout Palman Catholics is the hated and despised Palman
_Chueta_.

The mules were dragging our carriage across the plain whilst she told
me these things about the people, and at intervals she served me as
eyes to note the beauties that we passed. There were orchards of
almond-trees that seemed from a distance to be bearing a crop of
snowflakes, till one came nearer and could distinguish the delicate
pinks and mauves of their blossom; there were bushy algobras with rich
green foliage; oranges, bearing the last of that juicy crop which, when
fresh gathered, melts in the mouth like ice; olive-trees, with dry gray
leaves and trunks so grotesquely gnarled as to suggest arboreal pain.
The hot sun above, dappling the young corn and filling the stone
water-conduits with soft tree-shadows; the tinkling twitter of unseen
birds; the repose everywhere, made up a charm which my poor words
refuse to utter. And yet she made me feel it all, and more besides.

We approached the cup-edge of the mountain. To a Spaniard all trees
except fruit-trees mean so many cubic feet of wood for building or
charcoal. As Spain and Italy both know, climates change when the
forests go, and the crops suffer from long droughts or heavy deluges
which sweep the soil bodily away in spite of laboriously-built stone
terraces or concrete-lined water ducts. But that is for _manana_.
The timber is wanted for to-day, and down it comes. Yet from a merely
scenic point of view this ruthless axemanship is hardly to be deplored
where we were then. The rocks were bare, save for scattered dark-green
dottings of pine or ilex perched where they could not readily be come
at; they were full of fantastic shadows; they were shaven, gray, and
rugged; they were unspeakably grand.

The crags closed in as we went on, and the hiss of the stream which had
neared the road began to dro