One of the most lovely and original sights along the whole coast is that of the high range of bare, treeless mountains south of Cartagena, falling sheer into the sea, a delicate purple above the light blue water. There is not the merest rim of coast, in fact the sea flows round the mountains’ flanks, and they continue far out from the land, their tops occasionally appearing as small islands.
But especially will the traveller who has the happy chance to find himself at dawn of a cloudless day in a boat an hour west of Almería--especially then will he be ready to repeat the lines:
“Quién hubiese tal ventura Sobre las aguas del mar.”
A slight gleam in the east warns the moon that its reign of quiet light is to finish, and begins the long prelude of day. Above a dark line of sea a faint orange creeps into the sky, deepening to orange-purple, and soon fringing off in pale yellow, saffron, and daffodil. Then, later, above this, widens a space of clearest green, and at last the body of the sky changes from grey to a light blue. In the west all is still grey, as with a soft woof of hanging mists. The sails of a boat going out to sea are white in the first glow of dawn, and the gently swelling sea eastwards reflects the light in level gleams of gold, like smooth, burnished meadows of buttercups. Then the sun rises, red-orange, on a cloudless sea line, the sea becomes light blue, and along the rest of the horizon lie spaces of pearl and opal, while in the east a dim, silver moon fades slowly. The scene is of such enchanting loveliness, like the birth of a new world, that if the Sierra Nevada chances to be for the most part hidden in a long cloud of mist, the traveller scarcely notices one or two peaks that seem to be floating snow-white clouds. Then the mist of cloud melts away, and, one by one, the snow summits appear, till the whole immense range stands bare, looking incredibly high in a heaven of clear, faint green. It is a sight to make men hold their breath. The ship, night’s shadows scarce driven from her deck, passes slowly, almost noiselessly through the water as if she, too, understood that here is some enchanted country. The view of the Sierra Nevada from Granada, lovely as it is, gives no hint of a sight so incomparable as this. The range is of such vast length, the snow is so deep and soft. Long, almost level lines, huge, abrupt crags, gently sloping gullies, smooth, pyramid-shaped peaks, shelves and pinnacles, crevices and ledges, are all entirely wrapped in deep, much-sunned snow, without a break. Each look, after turning for a moment to the grey western horizon or the waving, crystalline surface of blue sea, brings a new wonder and a fresh surprise; so marvellous is the radiance of white appearing in the full glow from the east, and such is the infinite clearness and subtlety of the outlines on a sky varying from blue-grey to transparent green. The long massive range, seen from some distance out at sea, gives the impression of a height of twenty thousand feet, whereas from Granada it is difficult to realize that the highest peak is over eleven thousand. Below the snow-line, a high range of bare grey-purple mountains seems to sink into the sea, though there is, in fact, a line of level coast. Far or near no tree is to be seen; a white lighthouse stands on the coast, and on the silken blue sea gleams an occasional white sail or the flash of a seagull’s wing. As the sun rises higher the softly folding mountains beneath the Sierra Nevada grow more purple above the sea, and the shadows of their dimpling hollows blacken. Above, the wide, smooth spaces and the deep ravines present their broad surplice of glistening white to the sun without a shadow. It is all unimaginably lovely, with a breathless purity of things primeval--
