Tomb in Seville (3 page)

Our road crossed and recrossed the river in which vipers by the dozen were corkscrewing their way through the warm sunny water, and under a bridge of wooden planks we counted seven of them. An eagle detached itself from a boulder and flapped away towards the mountains. It was on a smooth rock face that an obituary was carved: ‘Beneath this rock died Tomàs, “The Mule”. June 8th 1916.’ We wondered how Tomàs had come to earn his reputation for pig-headedness, and how this spot had been selected for his death, and whether his passing had been peaceful or violent.

The afternoon was well advanced before we stumbled into a hamlet where bread and wine was to be bought. What was more to the point was that the owner of a pioneer model Morris Cowley lived here and was proud of a chance to demonstrate the machine in action. Although the lights could not be switched on, in the gathering dusk he drove us determinedly and in defiance of the State of Alarm half the way to the next village.

We had already seen examples of humans living in caves within a few miles of San Sebastián, but it was here that we encountered the first of the true cave-dwellers of our days. These could have been villagers in cottages which through an earthquake of exceptional violence had toppled into holes in the earth from which roofs, chimneys, and even a window sometimes appeared. But on second glance they were obviously still too tidy to have survived a catastrophe. It was merely a matter of caves being rent-free and cool in summer as these were. And that, we were told, was the reason why in this area of Spain carefully planned and constructed caves were multiplying more rapidly than houses in many small villages.

We were to see many more of them a day later when, maps carefully studied then stuffed away in haversacks, we began the remaining miles to Zaragoza with only the vaguest idea of when we were likely to arrive. This, after all, we consoled ourselves, was accepted as a main road, and although it appeared to pass for the most part through isolated communities, there were many of them in which, if necessary, we could take refuge. Amazingly, so late in the year, the sun shone as brilliantly as ever on this vast plain with the soft inflation of the distances by the heat, and that morning Tiebas, Tores, and Carascai came successively into sight, afloat in the mist over the yellow earth.

How did their people live? Small men with ancestors who for a thousand years had fitted themselves into the cramped living spaces in this barren immensity, watched us from the roadside, avid perhaps for human company of any kind. A lean fox scrutinised us from its hole, a gaunt bush suddenly exploded with a hundred twittering birds, while small white butterflies had settled on nearby rocks like hoarfrost. Ringing bells were in our ears for the first two days of the long walk to Zaragoza. We would arrive in a village to find three or four young men waiting at the church doors who did no more than stare with no reply to our salutations. Once again we were to suspect that what we saw here was an ancient form of defensive drill against foreign invaders or even casual marauders. We were watched, it was evident, until we were out of sight when the bell-ringing was renewed. About midday we were relieved by the sight of a village shack calling itself a casino, with bread and salt to offer the traveller and jugfuls of thin white wine. In our unjustified ignorance we had failed to take into account the Spanish taboo against wearing shorts other than on sporting occasions, and a law still imposed in many rural communities ruled that, even in the case of males, the kneecaps must be covered. Tactfully reminded of this in the casino we hastened to put the matter right.

I saw Eugene as a lover of the natural world and believed that it was only his father’s insistent championing of what he called ‘real life’ (largely to be measured in terms of financial prestige) that had so far debarred him from a career devoted to the great outdoors. Thus, although Ernesto himself was not to understand the mistake he had made in promoting our venture, it was inevitably to lead to an involvement with the Spain of the far past which otherwise neither of us would have experienced. As it was, much of our journey to Zaragoza was through hardly-trodden—and thus unspoiled—forest areas, and the wildlife observed on the walk was likely to be unusual if not unique in these surroundings.

On the night of the third day’s walk we found ourselves in an area with no signs of human occupation, and were therefore relieved to sight what appeared to be a deserted cave a hundred yards or so off the road. After a previous night of mist and rain, and under what was still a doubtful sky, we climbed the hillside to consider the possibilities of sleeping there. We found that the ferns and other vegetation had been cleared away, and the cave itself appeared at first sight to be a pit, largely encircled by a low whitewashed wall. The remnants of a door covered parts of a black opening and some effort was called for to tug the decayed door away and let in the light. This revealed a spacious cell with smooth walls upon which traces remained here and there of what might have been intricate paintings. Having studied these we moved on to explore a tunnel which proved to be only four or five yards in depth. Back in the stronger light several animal footprints were visible on the sandy floor. The most exciting discovery was what appeared to be part of a prehistoric pot sticking out of the wall.

We were about to settle down for the night here when Eugene spotted what he thought was a scorpion, which instantly took refuge in a crevice. This experience, plus the presence of a number of unidentifiable smaller insects—some brandishing what might have been stings in the rear ends of their bodies—caused us to change our minds of spending the night here, and to sleep in the open after all.

We awoke with the field lightly dusted with dawn and the squeaking of the first tree pipits in the branches above. An investigation into the possibilities of breakfast led us through various small villages of the neighbourhood, some consisting of as few as a dozen families living in houses with no more than two tiny rooms. The inhabitants were outstandingly similar to each other in their appearance. They were all remarkably short, although of sturdy appearance. There was something slightly alien about their full lips and flattened noses. Here there were no signs of the shyness we had experienced in some of the more northern villages. They laughed easily and accompanied a fluent conversation with excited gesticulation. Eugene speculated on the possibility of their being descendants of captives taken in the African wars of old. It was an interesting thought.

Above all they were exceedingly hospitable, and insisted on our staying in one of their cell-like rooms for the night. We were thankful for having brought children’s toys with us for dispensation in situations such as this.

S
UDDENLY, FOUR HARD DAYS’
walk from our destination, we were plunged into a change of climate, and the cold, winter-scented rains were upon us. It had been a long, dry summer, but now the sky was dimpled with soft lilac clouds and we found ourselves trudging through new sharp-edged grass oozing water and watery odours. The young men here wore the locks of childhood, soon to be replaced, with the disappearance of adolescence, by cropped hair covered with caps in deference to the coming of winter. We slept in a cave for the first time, only for it to be invaded by huge frogs seeking to pack themselves in the mud. Later we were awakened by the whinings of what we took to be a wild dog that had found its way in, although we were later assured that this would certainly have been a local domestic variety, which having been lost or abandoned had adjusted to life in the wild.

By the next day steady rainfall had produced streams on both sides of the road, and these contained innumerable tiny fish darting here and there in a few inches of water. Following advice we had bought a couple of small circular nets and managed in the end to catch a dozen or so tiddlers between two and three inches in length. A hundred yards or so away, wading birds with long legs and necks had been added to the landscape and we studied their fishing methods and results with envy.

The quest for undisturbed sleep was only a partial success. Dawn brought the astonishing discovery that the long night of rainfall had produced a remarkable effect: stepping out into the morning light, we discovered that our stream had become a shallow river in which ducks were already prospecting for eels.

Quite suddenly the rainforest was upon us—a conclusive black line drawn across the horizon at the limit of the rusty pastures of summer. With this came almost instantaneous change. The birds of prey began to leave the sky. More importantly we were relieved of a plague of flies, and a few hours later we entered a different world for which Eugene had prepared himself with a series of slim paperbacks chiefly upon animal life, although flora of the rarer kind also came in for mention.

I joined him in his enthusiasm and blessed the good luck that had brought us here where we hoped not only to explore the wonders of nature but, in the cooler climate, to enjoy the arrival of the autumn rains. Here, then, we were confronted by a forest storehouse of the treasures of the natural world, untouched by civilisation. The magnificent forest trees were too far from the nearest town for them to be seen as valuable timber, and Spain’s national universities considered themselves too poor to be able to finance academic tours dealing with natural history. Thus a treasure house of rare trees and plants had been left inviolate for investigation and enjoyment.

I discovered that Eugene had actually packed a small extensible butterfly net of the kind, he said, used by museum curators. The morning after our arrival a great sulphur-coloured butterfly failed to escape a swipe with this and was held for further inspection before release.

The next section of the rainforest was different in every way except the density of the arboreal growth. This was divided surprisingly between oaks and species of conifer. A covey of partridges circled the area while we were there, beating the air with stiff wings. We listened to a quick shuffle of small animals in a central thicket in which a splendid variety of the arum lily displayed a triumph in perpetual twilight. This indubitably was a rainforest, for a slow, steady rainfall fell all the time we were there. Eugene was happy to collect a snail that had purplish markings and was the size of a fist. A few dark moths changed direction to inspect us as they passed and we were treated to our first and probably last vision of that magnificent butterfly, the Purple Emperor—native almost exclusively of the oak-woods of southern Europe.

Yet another section of the forest was to take us by surprise. We climbed a slope up to a rampart of trees to be confronted with a black still-life of vegetation, dead to the eye. Here there were vast oaks set out by nature in their ranks and semicircles, lifted by centuries-old accumulation of leaf mould at their base to a kind of regal eminence over recent arboreal growth. The surrounding odour was one of sharp decay and an unchallenged antiquity bolstered by silence. Eugene noted down approximate measurements, pacing out the distances between trunks. They were smooth, as if lightly polished, all reaching—he estimated—a height of about thirty-five feet. Holes made by woodpeckers were present in most cases about twenty feet from the ground—the area of trunk immediately below these entrances being whitened by the birds’ droppings.

It was difficult not to be affected by this somewhat funereal environment, enlivened by the presence of many forms of attractive wildlife—the exotic birds, the spectacular butterflies and the extraordinary insects described in the illustrated booklets Eugene had included in his luggage. We were later to learn that this and other rainforests in the area were of special interest for the variety and exceptional size of their spiders. Their study had been wholly restricted to a few American scientists, and regarded as not of sufficient interest to the general public for books to be devoted to the subject, only one in fact having ever been published.

In the end our decision to spend a night in the rainforest was seen not only as a mild adventure but a closer association, however brief, with the greatest and most awe-inspiring of all living things, in the shade of which creatures of the jungle were puny indeed. Faced with these towering oaks that had grown from seeds no longer than fingernails to dominate their environment for centuries—or even a millennium—one was encouraged to speculate over the possible duration of life itself. Centuries of leaf-fall had covered the primeval terrain with a deep palliasse of leaf mould with which we made our beds. In the depths of this sounds suggestive of animal life were detected and were inevitably hostile to sleep. Eugene, whose hearing, as well as his capacity for belief, was better than mine, shovelled away at the leaf soil for an hour before putting his ear to the ground and then reporting a variety of sounds. He had read somewhere, he said, of colonies of prehistoric creatures collected and supported by trees in their deep roots.

High overhead a tide of birds had been swept in by the night, and began their sad hootings among the topmost branches. Until then we had heard little, the only sound being the clicking of stick insects hurrying along the twigs in search of their prey. Now there were only the owls to remind us of night.

Beyond the last of the forest next day we discovered a cautious return of the human presence. There were plots of cultivated land, some with the scrawny remains of the harvest of that year, and the first isolated settlement. Here we encountered a plea from a lonely man. ‘We don’t see anyone here for days on end. If you live in this place you long for the sight of a fresh face. Couldn’t you stay a little and talk? I can’t tell you how much we long to hear the latest news. Why not stay until tomorrow?’

The occupants of these tiny clusters of cottages lacked occupation and any form of creativity. Few crops could be induced to grow on this arid, sandy soil which normally supported little more than a kind of pampas grass. Such isolated communities were in the end bled dry, too, by the loss of the most energetic, intelligent and creative of their youngsters who were tempted to go in search of employment in the great Rioja vineyards, a day’s journey away to the west. Of those who went there in search of a new life, few wished to return.