The pasturage up there was very fine when we saw it, and there were still some cattle, descendants of the former domestic herd, which had now become wild.

It was possible to go on horseback as far as the Vaqueria, though the road was somewhat hazardous in places.

Sometimes it was very narrow with a yawning precipice on one side, hundreds of feet down to a roaring mountain torrent below, and almost perpendicular walls on the other side.

At one of these places one of our mules loaded with two sacks of barley, one on each side, the two about as big as he was, struck his load against the mountain-side and was precipitated to the bottom.

The descent was steep but not perpendicular.