When we emerged from the defiles, the crosses became somewhat less frequent. Our road now lay along the bases of stern, grand mountains, whose summits were cut off by immense archipelagos of mist. The country was a complete desert, with no other habitations save the reed hut of some _aguador_, or vender of brandy. This brandy is colourless, and is drunk out of long glasses filled up with water, which it causes it to turn white exactly as Eau-de-Cologne would. The weather was heavy and stormy, and the heat suffocating: a few large drops of water, the only ones that had fallen for a space of four months, from the implacable sky of lapis-lazuli, spotted the parched sand, and made it resemble a panther's skin; however, there was no shower after all, and the canopy of heaven resumed its immutable serenity. The sky was so constantly blue during my stay in Spain, that I find the following notice in my pocketbook: "Saw a white cloud," as if such an object was worthy of being especially recorded. We inhabitants of the north are so accustomed to behold the heavens covered with clouds, constantly varying in form and colour, and with which the wind builds mountains, islands, and palaces, that it soon destroys again to build elsewhere, that we cannot form any conception of the feeling of profound melancholy caused by this azure tint, as uniform as eternity itself, and which is always hanging over one's head. In a little village which we traversed, all the population were standing outside their houses in order to enjoy the rain, just as we should go in doors to avoid it. The night has set in without any twilight, almost in an instant, as is the case in warm climates, and we were not very far from Velez-Malaga, where we intended sleeping. The mountain-steeps began to be less abrupt, and gradually subsided in small stony plains, traversed by streams fifteen or twenty feet broad, and one foot deep; their banks were covered with gigantic reeds. The funeral crosses again became more numerous than ever, and their white colour caused them to stand out distinctly from the blue mist of night. We counted three of them in the distance of twenty paces, but the fact is, that the spot presents a most lonely appearance, and is admirably adapted for an ambuscade.