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A MORNING’S JOURNEY 189
liked and go as far as you liked in any direction, for
there are no “verboten” signs in the south of Spain.
On one side of me there was a sequia (an aqueduct),
probably built by the Arabs seven or eight centuries
ago. The aqueduct was provided on each side with
little weirs leading into troughs that extended into the
distance, so that each field could be inundated by itself,
while occasionally one of the troughs operated an
olive-mill. On the other side, the path was hedged
with blackberries. Black pigs burrowed under the
clinging vines; fiery red suckling pigs scurried about
devouring the grass. The air was cool and spiced with
the fragrance of blossoming fields of lupine.
Laden donkeys trotted by, with peasants sitting on
their cargoes, as well as neatly arrayed peasant women
who were heading for the city to salute their saint
there. There were very few wagons; every one rode.
Long-eared gray mules were cantering to town, bear-
ing burdens of straw or wood—burdens so large that
you could not understand how they kept their equilib-
rium. Fruits were carried to town on the donkey’s
back and fertilizer was brought home in the same
basket. Goods and men rode over the mountain from
time to time.
But these caravans of mules bearing cargoes of
goods through wild sierras and desert llanos were even
then becoming more and more infrequent. The rail-
roads were already beginning to dispose of them as
they have already disposed of so many other things.
However, I often met such caravans on my tours in
the sierra. Long trains of mules wound down along
the mountain-path, each animal laden with two casks
of wine, the mule at the head of the procession being
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