These were the only accentors we saw, nor did we see to-day or any other day a single snow-finch. * * * * * _An Alpine Farm._--The lands of San Gerónimo (where we were quartered) extend up the Monachil to either watershed--a length of 4-1/2 leagues, while the breadth cannot average less than two. The acreage we leave to be calculated by those who care for such detail. At this date (early May) certainly one-half lay under snow, which still encumbered the higher patches of cultivation--to-day we saw men unearthing last autumn's crop of potatoes well above the snow-line. At lower levels some corn already stood six inches high, but many "fields" were necessarily, as yet, unploughed. Fields, by the way, were separated not, as at home, by hedges, but sometimes by a sheer drop of 500 or 1000 feet, elsewhere by perpendicular rock-faces or by shale-shoots. But the laborious cultivation missed not one level patch--nor unlevel either, since we saw ox-teams ploughing where one wondered if even a cat could maintain a footing. This is the highest farm in Neváda, possibly in all Spain. The house stands at 6000 feet and the lands extend to the Veleta, 11,597 feet. It provides grazing for goats and sheep, as well as a small herd of cattle, and thus affords permanent employment to several herdsmen. But at seed-time and harvest it employs as many as twenty or thirty men who, with their dependents, live in rude esparto-thatched huts scattered over the whole fifteen miles, and it was the numbers of these (assembled for pay-day) that had caused us some consternation on our first arrival! The value of the farm, we were told, is put at £8000 Spanish, representing some £400 as yearly rental. Two years before, wolves had become such a pest to the flocks that strychnine was universally resorted to, with the result that to-day not a wolf is to be seen in the whole sierra. Foxes also perished, and the guarda, Manuel Gallegos, told us that he had thus obtained several wild-cats (_Gatos montéses_) whose skins fetched 20 pesetas apiece as ladies' furs. The following day we chanced on a dead marten-cat, evidently killed by poison; and on showing it to Manuel with the remark that that was _not_ a _gato montés_, he replied: "No, señor, that is a _garduño; pero lo mismo da_" = "it's all the same!" Accuracy in definition is not a strong point with Manuel, nor indeed is it with any of our Spanish friends.