We Started At Ten O'clock, And It Was Not Too
Late In That Land Of Anomalous Hours To Meet Peasants On Their Mules And
Donkeys Bringing Loads Of Stuff To Market In Algeciras.
Men were plowing
with many yoke of oxen in the wheat-fields; elsewhere there were green
pastures with herds of horses grazing in them, an abundance of brown
pigs, and flocks of sheep with small lambs plaintively bleating.
The
pretty white farmhouses, named each after a favorite saint, and
gathering at times into villages, had grapes and figs and pomegranates
in their gardens; and when we left them and climbed higher, we began
passing through long stretches of cork woods.
The trees grew wild, sometimes sturdily like our oaks, and sometimes
gnarled and twisted like our seaside cedars, and in every state of
excoriation. The bark is taken from them each seventh year, and it
begins to be taken long before the first seventh. The tender saplings
and the superannuated shell wasting to its fall yield alike their bark,
which is stripped from the roots to the highest boughs. Where they have
been flayed recently they look literally as if they were left bleeding,
for the sap turns a red color; but with time this changes to brown, and
the bark begins to renew itself and grows again till the next seventh
year. Upon the whole the cork-wood forest is not cheerful, and I would
rather frequent it in the pages of _Don Quixote_ than out; though if the
trees do not mind being barked it is mere sentimentality in me to pity
them.
The country grew lonelier and drearier as we mounted, and the wind blew
colder over the fields blotched with that sort of ground-palm, which
lays waste so much land in southern Spain. When we descended the winding
road from the summit we came in sight of the sea with Africa clearly
visible beyond, and we did not lose sight of it again. Sometimes we met
soldiers possibly looking out for smugglers but, let us hope, not
molesting them; and once we met a brace of the all-respected Civil
Guards, marching shoulder to shoulder, with their cloaks swinging free
and their carbines on their arms, severe, serene, silent. Now and then a
mounted wayfarer came toward us looking like a landed proprietor in his
own equipment and that of his steed, and there were peasant women
solidly perched on donkeys, and draped in long black cloaks and hooded
in white kerchiefs.
IV
The landscape softened again, with tilled fields and gardened spaces
around the cottages, and now we had Tarifa always in sight, a stretch of
white walls beside the blue sea with an effect of vicinity which it was
very long in realizing. We had meant when we reached the town at last to
choose which _fonda_ we should stop at for our luncheon, but our driver
chose the Fonda de Villanueva outside the town wall, and I do not
believe we could have chosen better if he had let us. He really put us
down across the way at the _venta_ where he was going to bait his
horses; and in what might well have seemed the custody of a little
policeman with a sword at his side, we were conducted to the _fonda_ and
shown up into the very neat icy cold parlor where a young girl with a
yellow flower in her hair received us. We were chill and stiff from our
drive and we hoped for something warmer from the dining-room, which we
perceived must face southward, and must be full of sun. But we reckoned
without the ideal of the girl with the yellow flower in her hair: in the
little saloon, shining round with glazed tiles where we next found
ourselves, the sun had been carefully screened and scarcely pierced the
scrim shades. But this was the worst, this was all that was bad, in that
_fonda._ When the breakfast or the luncheon, or whatever corresponds in
our usage to the Spanish _almuerzo,_ began to come, it seemed as if it
never would stop. An original but admirable omelette with potatoes and
bacon in it was followed by fried fish flavored with saffron. Then there
was brought in fried kid with a dish of kidneys; more fried fish came
after, and then boiled beef, with a dessert of small cakes. Of course
there was wine, as much as you would, such as it was, and several sorts
of fruit. I am sorry to have forgotten how little all this cost, but at
a venture I will say forty cents, or fifty at the outside; and so great
kindness and good will went with it from the family who cooked it in the
next room and served it with such cordial insistence that I think it was
worth quite the larger sum. It would not have been polite to note how
much of this superabundance was consumed by the three Spanish gentlemen
who had so courteously saluted us in sitting down at table with us. I
only know that they made us the conventional acknowledgment in refusing
our conventional offer of some things we had brought with us from our
hotel to eat in the event of famine at Tarifa.
When we had come at last to the last course, we turned our thoughts
somewhat anxiously to the question of a guide for the town which we felt
so little able to explore without one; and it seemed to me that I had
better ask the policeman who had brought us to our _fonda._ He was
sitting at the head of the stairs where we had left him, and so far from
being baffled by my problem, he instantly solved it by offering himself
to be our guide. Perhaps it was a profession which he merely joined to
his civic function, but it was as if we were taken into custody when he
put himself in charge of us and led us to the objects of interest which
I cannot say Tarifa abounds in.
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