“Did your worship never hear of the seven _bellotas_?” replied our guide. “I can scarcely tell you what they are, as I have never seen them; I believe they are seven hills which we have to cross, and are called _bellotas_ from some resemblance to acorns which it is fancied they bear. I have often heard of these acorns, and am not sorry that I have now an opportunity of seeing them, though it is said that they are rather hard things for horses to digest.” The Asturian mountains in this part rise to a considerable altitude. They consist for the most part of dark granite, covered here and there with a thin layer of earth. They approach very near to the sea, to which they slope down in broken ridges, between which are deep and precipitous defiles, each with its rivulet, the tribute of the hills to the salt flood. The road traverses these defiles. There are seven of them, which are called, in the language of the country, _Las siete bellotas_. Of all these the most terrible is the midmost, down which rolls an impetuous torrent. At the upper end of it rises a precipitous wall of rock, black as soot, to the height of several hundred yards; its top, as we passed, was enveloped with a veil of _bretima_. From this gorge branch off, on either side, small dingles or glens, some of them so overgrown with trees and copsewood, that the eye is unable to penetrate the obscurity beyond a few yards. “Fine places would some of these dingles prove for hermitages,” said I to Martin of Rivadeo. “Holy men might lead a happy life there on roots and water, and pass many years absorbed in heavenly contemplation without ever being disturbed by the noise and turmoil of the world.” “True, your worship,” replied Martin; “and perhaps on that very account there are no hermitages in the _barrancos_ of the seven _bellotas_. Our hermits had little inclination for roots and water, and had no kind of objection to be occasionally disturbed in their meditations. _Vaya_! I never yet saw a hermitage that was not hard by some rich town or village, or was not a regular resort for all the idle people in the neighbourhood. Hermits are not fond of living in dingles, amongst wolves and foxes; for how in that case could they dispose of their poultry? A hermit of my acquaintance left, when he died, a fortune of seven hundred dollars to his niece, the greatest part of which he scraped up by fattening turkeys.”