We ascended to the castellated parapet at the top of the keep to enjoy the exquisite panorama of the wide village-dotted valley and the surrounding peaks; there was the river Verdugo, and yonder, the waterfall which supplies Vigo with electric light; in the distance we could see the village of Puente Caldelas; all the pine woods and the meadows in the vicinity of the castle are part of the Sotomayor estate. Opposite the Castle Mos on a cone-shaped hill, a little loftier, if anything, we could see ruined walls and a chapel. This was the peak called la Peneda, and the chapel of _la Virgen de la Peneda_; the walls are a remnant of fortifications placed there by a fighting Archbishop of Santiago to whom all the valley was subject, that he might keep an eye on the movements of the unruly Sotomayors. The turret is filled now with small bedrooms for visitors, and huge wardrobes stand in the passages, while in every bedroom there is a commodious zinc bath. The reception-room, the ceiling of which is handsomely carved, is draped with fine old tapestries, but those on the walls of the dining-room are modern. Good old-fashioned stone chimneys and wide hearths give the whole place an air of comfort; there is a billiard-room with French windows opening into a stone balcony on two sides of it, and from here we see three old cannon still perched upon the outer walls; they are ornaments now, and covered with verdigris, but there was a day when they had their use. In the billiard-room we found a little book describing the castle, written by a niece of the present marquis, la Marquesa de Ayerbe;[258] she has published several other works. The marquesa began her book with a quotation from Taine,[259] about the kings and knights of the Middle Ages being one and all warriors by profession, and who, in order to be always ready, had their horses standing in their bedrooms while they slept. Then came a verse by Molina, in which he enumerates the great families of Galicia, including that of Sotomayor. “The reason that Sotomayor arrives so far on in the list is,” explains the marquesa, “because Molina, to be quite impartial, took the families alphabetically--there is no question of precedence.” The authoress tells us she was herself born, baptized, and married in the castle, so that she has spent nearly every summer of her life there, and that she is a true native of beautiful Galicia, which she passionately loves. She reminds her readers of Taine’s remark that in the days of the Moors in Spain all the eminent medical men, surgeons, artists, and men of brains and talent, generally were either Moors or Jews, and that they exercised a beneficial influence upon the country by importing civilisation from the East. She also gives an interesting quotation from the will of a Sotomayor, which is still in existence and bears the date 1468, and another from one dated 1472; she states further that the fort on a neighbouring peak is called _Castrican_ or