The travellers again occupied a wheeled carriage, and pursued their journey with rapidity. In some parts they traversed extensive forests, sublime in sylvan grandeur; then they wound through the shady defiles of intersecting hills, or passed through towns and villages, whose light and airy architecture bore evidence of Moresco origin; all around was a fair garden. But there was a bound; a wall of mountains rose before them, shooting up into the azure heavens, in sharp and menacing peaks.
Here they resumed their mules. The first part of the ascent was gradual; and as Louis mounted the rugged acclivities, (sometimes on foot, to scale the highest points, while his beast rested;) he saw, winding along the less abrupt tracks, the shepherds of the plains, driving their flocks to the recesses of the upland pastures. The practice is the same in Scotland; and the similitude pleased one, who had passed some of his happiest hours amongst the Highland hills.
But the image of him, who was then his dear and trusted companion, rose with the remembrance. He saw him bounding down the breezy height; his plaid streaming in the air; and his feathered bonnet in his hand, as he whistled gaily, and waved him from afar. Louis closed his eyes, to shut out the association with the scene; but it would not do. The glad smile of perfect confidence still shone on the visionary lip; the eyes of the persecuting phantom continued to sparkle with greeting intelligence; and even his voice seemed to sound in his ear!--Louis shuddered to the soul, and spurring his mule, dashed forward amongst beetling rocks and caverned ruins. They had once been a magnificent work of man. An aqueduct, built by the Romans; and its remains clasped the mouth of the pass which leads to the interior of the mountains. Hence it was called the _Puerta de Ronda_; as these were the peaks of that name, which stretch their stony ramparts between the plains of Andalusia and the borders of the sea. The Sierra de Ronda surpasses in desolate grandeur, even the sublime wastes of the Morena mountains. No vegitation crowned these vast colossal rocks; bare to the sun and tempest, they looked like the huge altar of nature, to which avenging Jove bound the consuming, but still immortal Prometheus. All around was either acclivity or precipice; and from between two high pyramidal craggs, Louis caught his first view of the Mediterranean.