Tomb in Seville Read Online Free PDF

in the stark little village of Ujué—an almost unpronounceable name given it, we were told, by a nomadic tribe which finally established itself there a thousand or so years back.
    No more settlements were shown in this area on the map, so we slept out uneasily, and were frequently disturbed by strange whining sounds in our vicinity. Could wild dogs possibly exist in Spain, we wondered. There was no reason to defer an early start, so we set off shortly after dawn, reaching Tudela in the early afternoon. This—the most extraordinary town either of us had ever seen—came into view across the river Ebro. It appeared at first to be composed entirely of cave dwellings, many of them very large. Later, after a brief exploration, I wrote in my notes that on first sight we estimated there were probably as many caves as normal houses.
    We ran into a local man strolling with his dog on our side of the river who was happy to talk to us. He agreed that probably half the population were cave-dwellers, but since the caves were cooler in summer and warmer in winter he insisted that many families did so out of preference. There were, of course, economic advantages. Caves were bought, sold and rented precisely as normal houses were, although naturally at lower prices. The more complex caves were divided into several rooms: those in the neighbourhood of such towns as Zaragoza could be fitted with electric light and leased or sold by instalments or otherwise through the usual housing agents. They attracted little or no outside interest, he assured me. Many tourists, he said, came to Tudela, invariably in summer, to visit the local stork colony—one of the largest in Spain—and to photograph the immense nests built on the towers of the church.
    With some difficulty we found a room in one of the smaller and simpler caves and were served an excellent meal in another which, through development, had become a miniature labyrinth.
    A little nervous about the possibility of missing the train to Madrid, we reluctantly decided to abandon our plan to spend a further day in Tudela and to press on with all possible speed. We were therefore up at dawn in the absurd hope of reaching Zaragoza in a single day. The surrounding landscape, we were to find, had changed almost miraculously overnight and featureless plains were filling with uplands such as the Montes de Castagon from the crags of which a number of fishing eagles launched to investigate us as we passed. Whereas the plains had been almost as dry as a desert, here it had rained in the night, filling the air with damp autumnal scents. Plants of all kinds were waking from the long trance of summer, and wherever we looked small starry blooms popped up on the surface of the earth.
    Approaching the banks of the river at Alargon, we passed close to a group of piratical-looking fishermen in hooded capes and long boots wading in the shallows. Stopping for a moment to watch them we were astonished by the way they bowed their heads as if in prayer before casting in their lines. They were close enough for us to chat with a recent arrival before he splashed into the water. It had been a hot, dry summer, he said. This was the best time to fish. Particularly when the rain happened to coincide with a religious feast, when up to double the normal catch could be expected. Reminded that these were moveable feasts, he returned a happy laugh. ‘It is of no importance. God’s blessing comes with the feast, whether they move or not.’
    Everywhere the night’s rains had saturated the landscape through which we had been limping on sore feet. A final spurt would have brought us within reach of the suburbs of Zaragoza before dark, but we gradually realised that this was a forlorn hope and decided to stop at Casetas. This substantial village offered a casa rural with beds, and its owner, dressed as an American cowboy, rode up to guide us in. There was food and lodging of a kind, and that was all that mattered. It was