blanche une autre plaine blanche_, like the Queen Romayquia, wife of Abenabet, Moorish King of Seville, who could find no solace in her longing for the sight of snow. The King ordered almond-trees to be planted all about the city of Córdoba, that in early spring at least, if not at Christmas, the Queen might beguile her fancy with the snow-white almond blossoms.[88] But even in Andalucía, towards the end of December, one may see several comparatively low mountain ranges thickly coated with snow. Stores of firing are then brought down to the villages from the treeless hills. Further north the vines have been pruned, and the vine-twigs brought in for burning; but here the vines have not yet lost their leaves, and the firing consists of thyme and whin and rosemary, mint and lavender and other scented hill-plants. Troops of donkeys arrive at sunset, with immense, sweet-smelling loads, that entirely hide the red or purple tassels and fringes of their harness. The oranges now gleam in myriads along the eastern coast; sometimes the icy winds from inland freeze them, and fires of smouldering straw are burnt round and in the orange groves, after the wind has ceased, that a dense smoke may hang about the trees and warm them. Weeks before Christmas the _turroneros_ from Jijona, noticeable for their small peaked hats of black velvet, appear in nearly every city and town of Spain. In porches or in large bare shops they set out their layers of white wooden boxes, and samples of the _turrón_, or almond-paste, which is an essential part of Spanish Christmas fare. For the time, Jijona, the grey town in the hills, is deserted, though but a few weeks ago every house was a busy scene of _turrón_ making, and nailing thin white planks into boxes. The snow will soon lie deep on the Carrasqueta hill-range above the town. The almond-trees, whose pink flowers in February form a solitary belt of colour between Jijona and the rocky mountains, are now as bare and grey as the surrounding country. Some of the inhabitants have gone to the warmer south, taking the _diligencia_ to Alicante; others have scaled the steep, winding road past the Barranco de la Batalla, where once the Cid wrought havoc of the Moors, and now herds of goats feed apparently on nothing, and have taken train at Alcoy for the cold, high-lying cities of the north. But not in the northern uplands only are Spanish winters cruel; the _dehesas_ of Andalucía are equally unprotected, the silent, icy winds blow subtle and fierce and penetrating over the undulating hill country round Córdoba, and one may see shepherd boys, closely muffled in their plaids, standing frozen and motionless, the sheep pressing around them and against one another for shelter. IX THE COAST OF CATALONIA IN AUTUMN