The Stone Raft

...

The devil had his first abode in these parts, his were the hooves that scorched the ground and trampled the ashes, amid mountains that shivered with fear then and continue to do so to this day, the ultimate desert where even Christ would have allowed Himself to be tempted by that same devil, had He not already experienced the wiles of Satan, as one reads in the Bible. Joaquim Sassa and José Anaiço contemplate, what do they contemplate, the landscape, but this delightful word belongs to other worlds, to other languages, you cannot refer to what one sees here as a landscape, we have called it an infernal abode, but we are not altogether sure, for in places of damnation we're almost certain to find men and women with the animals that keep them company, until the moment comes to slaughter them in order to live, amid disasters and misfortunes, this is the place of exile where the poet who never visited Granada must have written his verses. These are the lands of Orce, which must have soaked up so much Moorish and Christian blood, to speak once more of the Dark Ages, but why speak of those who died so many years ago, if it is the land that is dead, buried within itself.

At Orce, the travelers found Pedro Orce, a pharmacist by profession, older than they would have imagined him, had they given the matter any thought. Pedro Orce did not appear on television, therefore we could not have known that he is a man in his sixties, thin in features and body, his hair almost entirely white, and were it not for his sober taste, which shuns any artifice, he could make up dark and fair hair dyes at will in the secrecy of his laboratory, for he is skilled in these chemical concoctions. When Joaquim Sassa and José Anaiço enter the pharmacy, he is filling capsules with quinine powder, an old-fashioned medicament that avoids the powerful concentrations characteristic of modern prescriptions, while astutely preserving the psychological effect of awkward deglutination, followed as if by magic by immediate results. In Orce, which one must inevitably pass through to reach Venta Micena, travelers are rare now that the commotion of excavations and discoveries has passed, we do not even know where the skull of the town's oldest ancestor is kept, there in some museum awaiting a glass case with a label, normally any customers passing through buy aspirin, pills to help their digestion or to cure diarrhea, as for the local inhabitants, they probably die from their first illness, so the pharmacist will most likely never get rich. Pedro Orce has finished sealing the capsules, just like a conjuring trick, after moistening the parts that will serve to seal the capsule, the two brass plates are pressed together, then opened, and the prescription is ready, one last capsule of quinine makes a dozen, and this done he asks them, What can I do for you gentlemen, We are Portuguese, a pointless statement, one need only hear them speak to know at once where they come from, but, after all, it is only natural to declare who we are before saying why we have come, especially in situations of such importance, to travel hundreds of kilometers just to ask, although not necessarily with these dramatic words, Pedro Orce, do you swear on your honor and on the excavated bones that you felt the earth shake when all the seismographs of Seville and Granada, their needles steady, traced the straightest line you ever saw, and Pedro Orce raised his hand and said, with the simplicity of a just and honest man, I do, We would like to have a word in private, Joaquim Sassa added after they had revealed their nationality, and there and then, since there were no other clients in the pharmacy, they told him about their personal and joint experiences, about the stone, the starlings, crossing the frontier, they could not show him the stone, but as for the birds, you need only stick your head outside the door and look, there, in this square or in the adjacent one, the inevitable flock of birds, all the inhabitants staring up at the sky amazed at this unusual spectacle, now the birds have disappeared, they have descended upon the Castle of the Seven Towers, Arabic in origin. Better not to speak here, Pedro Orce said, get into the car and drive out of town, In which direction, Drive straight ahead, in the direction of Maria, keep going for three kilometers beyond the last houses, there is a tiny bridge, nearby an olive tree, wait for me there, I'll join you shortly, Joaquim Sassa had the impression that he was about to relive a scene from his own life, that morning two days ago, when he had waited for José Anaiço, beyond the last houses in town.

They are seated on the ground, under a Cordoban olive tree, the kind that, according to the popular quatrain, makes the oil yellow, as if olive oil weren't yellow, or only occasionally slightly greenish, and the first words from José Anaiço, he could not suppress them, were, This place is enough to put the fear of God into you, and Pedro Orce replied, It's much worse in Venta Micena, where 1 was born, an ambiguous formality that means what it appears to be saying as well as the exact opposite, depending more on the reader than on the reading, although the latter is entirely dependent on the former, which explains why we find it so difficult to know who is reading what has been read, or the effect of what has been read on the person who reads it, let us hope that, in this case, Pedro Orce will not think that the curse on the place is the result of his having been born there. Then as their discussion got under way, they gradually started to compare their experiences as discus-thrower, bird-catcher, and seismologist, and they came to the conclusion that all the events that had taken place had been, and continued to be, somehow connected, especially since Pedro Orce insists that the ground has not stopped shaking, I can feel it even at this very moment, and he stretched out his hand to show them what he meant. Drawn by curiosity, José Anaiço and Joaquim Sassa touched the hand he kept outstretched, and they could feel, oh yes, beyond the shadow of a doubt they could feel the tremor, the vibration, the drone, and although some skeptic might suggest that it is natural for people to start trembling at a certain age, Pedro Orce is not all that old, and trembling and tremor are not the same thing, whatever the dictionaries might tell us.

Anyone watching from afar would think that the three men had just pledged themselves to some commitment or other, what is certain is that they quickly shook hands, and nothing more. All around, the stones have intensified the heat, the white earth is dazzling, the sky is an open furnace blowing hot air, even in the shade beneath this Cordoban olive tree. So far no olives have appeared, the men are safe for the moment from the voracious starlings, once December comes you will see such plundering, but since there is only one olive tree, the starlings are not likely to frequent these parts. Joaquim Sassa switched on his radio, for suddenly none of the three had anything more to say, scarcely surprising, after all, they have not known each other for very long, the announcer's voice can be heard, grown nasal from all that broadcasting and because the batteries are low, Judging from the latest measurements, the speed of the peninsula's dislocation has stabilized at around seven hundred and fifty meters per hour, the three men started listening to the news, According to the latest reports to reach the newsroom, an enormous crack has appeared between La Linea and Gibraltar, the voice droned on and on, We shall be back with more news, unless anything unforeseen should happen, in an hour's time, at this very moment the starlings passed in a flurry, vruuuuuuuuu, and Joaquim Sassa asked, Are they yours, and José Anaiço didn't even have to look up before replying, They're mine, he has no difficulty in recognizing them, he knows them, Sherlock Holmes would be bound to say, Elementary, my dear Watson, there isn't another flock like it in these parts, and he is right, for there are few birds in hell, only the nocturnal ones, a matter of tradition.

Pedro Orce follows the flock's flight, initially out of mild curiosity, then his eyes light up with blue sky and white clouds, and, unable to hold back the words, he suddenly proposes, Why don't we go to the coast and see the rock as it passes. This may sound absurd, nonsensical, but it is not, even when we travel by train, we think we see trees passing when they are firmly rooted in the soil, at this moment we are not traveling by train, we are traveling more slowly, on a stone raft that is sailing the sea, unfettered, the only difference being that which exists between solid and liquid. So often we need a whole lifetime in order to change our life, we think a great deal, weigh things up and vacillate, then we go back to the beginning, we think and think, we displace ourselves on the tracks of time with a circular movement, like those clouds of dust, dead leaves, debris, that have no strength for anything more, better by far that we should live in a land of hurricanes. At other times one word is all that is needed, Let's go and see the rock as it passes, and they get to their feet, eager for adventure, they don't even feel the scorching heat, they run laughing down the slope, like children given their freedom, Deux Chevaux is like a burning cauldron, within seconds the three men are bathed in sweat, but they scarcely notice their discomfort, for from these same southern parts men set out to discover the New World, rugged and fierce, sweating like pigs in their armor, steel helmets on their heads, they advanced sword in hand to fight the naked Indians, clad only in feathers and war paint, an idyllic image.

They did not go back through the village, for anyone seeing Pedro Orce and the two strangers traveling in the same car would suspect either that he was being abducted or that the three of them were involved in some conspiracy, better call the police, but some old man, one of the veterans of Orce, would say, We don't want the Civil Guard here. They went by other routes, along roads not marked on the average map, the person we need right now is the sphinx of tourism, to trace out the itinerary of these new discoveries, for she had turned out to be a sphinx, after all, rather than a sibyl, for no sibyl has ever been seen at a crossroads, even if both species are native to the peninsula. Pedro Orce said, First I must show you Venta Micena, the place where I was born, the phrase came out as if he were mocking himself or deliberately touching a sore point. They passed through a village in ruins called Fuente Nueva, if there ever was a fountain here it has dried up and vanished, and at a wide bend in the road ahead, he called out, There it is.

They take a good look and see so little that they start searching for what must be missing and can no longer be found. There, asked José Anaiço, he has cause for doubt, because there are only a few scattered houses, they merge with the color of the earth, a church tower down below, here at the edge of the road what is unmistakably a cemetery, with a cross and white walls. Under the volcanic sun, the countryside rolls like a petrified sea covered with dust, if things were already like this one million, four hundred thousand years ago, you do not have to be a paleontologist to testify that Orce Man died of thirst, the world was young once, the stream that flows over there would then have been a wide and generous river, great trees would have towered, and grasses taller than man, in the days before hell was located here. At the right season, when there is rain, some greenery will sprout on these ashen fields, nowadays the low verges are cultivated with great effort, the plants dry up and die, then revive and flourish, it's man who still has not learned how cycles repeat themselves, with him it is once and nevermore. Pedro Orce makes a gesture that embraces the blighted village. The house where I was born no longer exists, and then, pointing to the left, in the direction of some flat-topped hills, That's the Cueva de los Rosales, where the bones of Orce Man were discovered. Joaquim Sassa and José Anaiço looked at the livid landscape, one million, four hundred thousand years ago this place was inhabited by men and women who engendered men and women who engendered men and women, destiny, disaster, right up to the present day, one million, four hundred thousand years hence someone will come to carry out excavations in this poor cemetery, and since there is already an Orce Man, perhaps the skull that has just been found will now be returned to its rightful owner and be called Venta Micena Man. No one passes, no dog can be heard barking, the starlings have disappeared, Joaquim Sassa feels a shiver run all the way up his spine, as he tries in vain to suppress his uneasiness, and José Anaiço asks, What's the name of that mountain down there, That's the Sierra de Sagra, And this one here, on our right, That's the Sierra de Maria, When Orce Man died, that must have been the last thing he saw, What would he have called it when he talked with other men from Orce, the ones who left no skulls behind, Joaquim Sassa asked, At that time there were no names, José Anaiço said, How can you look at something without giving it a name, You have to wait for the name to be born. The three men stood there gazing, with nothing more to say, it was time to leave the past to its restless peace.

In order to lighten their journey, Pedro Orce repeated in greater detail the story of his adventures, the scientists had even linked him up to a seismograph in the presence of the authorities, a desperate but useful measure, for then they would be able to establish whether he had been telling the truth, the needle on the dial immediately registered an earth tremor, the line becoming straight again once the guinea pig had been disconnected from the machine. The inexplicable has been explained, declared the Mayor of Granada, who was looking on, but one of the experts corrected him, The inexplicable will have to wait a little longer, it wasn't a strictly scientific statement but everyone understood what he meant and agreed. They sent Pedro Orce home, instructing him to remain at the disposal of science and the authorities, warning him that he should speak to no one of his extrasensory powers, a recommendation differing little from the decision made by the French veterinary surgeons concerning the mysterious disappearance of the vocal cords of the dogs of Cerbère.

Deux Chevaux has finally turned in a southerly direction, the car is already on well-traveled roads, there seems to be no shortage here of fuel, gasoline, or diesel, but little by little the car is obliged to reduce its lively pace, ahead there is an endless line of traffic crawling at a snail's pace, other cars, trucks and buses carrying freight, motorcycles, bicycles, mopeds, scooters, horse-drawn carts, people riding donkeys, but no Roque Lozano among them, and people on foot, many of these, some asking for a lift, others clearly disdaining any means of transport, as if doing penance, or fulfilling some dream, it is more likely to be a dream, and there is no point in asking them where they are going, you do not need to be called Pedro Orce to share the same thought and want to see Gibraltar pass in the distance, drifting off course, you need only be Spanish, and here Spaniards abound. They come from Cordoba, from Linares, from Jaén, from Guadix, all of them major cities, but also from Higuera de Arjona, from El Tocón, from Bular Bajo, from Alamedilla, from Jesús del Monte, from Almácegas, delegations appear to have been dispatched from every region, these people have been extremely patient, ever since the year 1704, just imagine, if Gibraltar is not going to belong to us, if we who have become part of these waters must renounce it, then why should it go to the English. The human river grew so wide that the traffic police had to open wherever possible a third lane heading south, few vehicles are traveling north, only in an emergency, sickness or death, and even so they are looked at with mistrust, suspected of Anglophilia, perhaps they want to bury in some remote corner their distress at this geological and strategic separation.

But for most people this is a day of great rejoicing, a week as holy as the official one, and there are trucks carrying statues of Christ, the Virgins of Triana and Macarena, brass bands, their instruments shining in the sun, and on the donkeys' backs can be seen bundles of firewood and mortars, if someone were to put a lighted match anywhere near them, they would soar like Clavileño to the second and third heights of the heavens, and to that of fire, where they would singe Sancho Panza's beard, if, with his gullible nature, he allowed himself to be deceived yet again. The young girls are dressed in all their finery, with mantillas and shawls, and the elderly, when they can walk no farther, are carried by the young on their backs, son you are, father you will be, you will reap as you have sown, until some vehicle stops, any vehicle, and the journey goes on, their weary limbs relaxed, everyone making for the coast, the beaches, better still if they can find some elevation looking out to sea where they might be sure of a good view of that damned rock, what a pity it's too far to hear the monkeys screeching, disoriented because there's no land in sight. As the sea gets closer, the traffic becomes more congested, some are already abandoning their vehicles and walking, or begging a lift from those traveling in horse-drawn carts or on donkeys, the latter cannot abandon these creatures of nature, they have to tend them, water them, put the baskets of straw and bean pods to their snouts, even the police are aware of the situation, they are all countryfolk, therefore the orders are to leave the trucks and cars at the side of the road, the animals can go on, and motorcycles, bicycles, scooters, and mopeds are also permitted, the latter have ways and means of maneuvering smoothly in and out of traffic because they do not take up much space. The brass bands, on foot, rehearse the first paso dobles, an overenthusiastic vendor of fireworks, or some ardent patriot, prematurely lets off a mighty firecracker, to the annoyance of his friends, not prepared to waste their fireworks without good reason. Deux Chevaux has also come to a halt, it was the only Portuguese car in the procession, the only one with Portuguese registration, that is, watching Gibraltar drifting past does not bother Deux Chevaux one way or the other, his ancient grief is called Olivença and this road does not lead there. You can see people who are already lost, women calling for their husbands, children calling for their parents, but fortunately for all of them they will eventually be reunited, if this is not a day for laughter, it is not one for weeping either, God willing and that Cur of a Son. There are dogs too, sniffing around, few of them bark, except when they start fighting among themselves, not a single one of them from Cerbère. And when two donkeys appeared on the loose, with no sign of their owners, Pedro Orce, Joaquim Sassa, and José Anaiço unwisely decided to make use of them taking turns, one walking, the other two riding, but their comfort was short-lived, the donkeys belonged to a band of gypsies who were traveling north, these last could not have cared less about Gibraltar, and if Pedro Orce had not been Spanish, and of the most ancient and respected lineage, Portuguese blood would have been shed on the spot.

All along the coast the encampment stretches for miles, almost like a small village, thousands and thousands of people looking out to sea, some have clambered onto rooftops and up tall trees, not to mention all the other thousands who did not want to come so far and stayed behind, with spyglasses and binoculars, on the heights of the Sierra Contraviesa or on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada, here we are only interested in the more humble people, those who have to touch things in order to recognize them, they will not get all that close, but they are doing their utmost. José Anaiço, Joaquim Sassa, and Pedro Orce have come with them, spurred by the enthusiasm of Pedro Orce and the good-natured friendliness of the others, now they are seated on some boulders facing the sea, the evening is drawing in, and Joaquim Sassa, the self-confessed pessimist, remarks, If Gibraltar should pass during the night, we will have made the journey in vain. At least we'll be able to see her lights, Pedro Orce argued, and it might actually be even better to watch the rock moving away like a ship all lit up, then we'd have a real excuse for setting off fireworks, pinwheels, silver rain, cascades, or whatever they're called here, while the rock fades away in the distance, disappears into the darkness of night, good-bye, good-bye, never to be seen again. But José Anaiço had spread out the map on his lap, and with pencil and paper he made some calculations, repeated them one by one to be absolutely certain, checked the scale once again, double-checked his figures, and finally declared, As for Gibraltar, my friends, it will take about ten days to get here, incredulous surprise on the part of his companions, then he showed them his arithmetic, he did not even need to invoke his authority as a certified teacher, knowledge of this kind, fortunately, is within reach of the simplest minds, if the peninsula, or island, or whatever, is moving at a speed of seven hundred and fifty meters per hour, we can figure it will cover eighteen kilometers each day, okay, draw a straight line from the Bay of Algeciras to where we are standing, it's almost two hundred kilometers, so work that out, it's not difficult. Confronted with this irrefutable proof, Pedro Orce bowed his head in submission, And we have come running here with all these people thinking our day of glory has arrived, that today we could have mocked the Evil Stone, and now we'll have to wait ten days, no fire lasts long. And suppose we were to go and meet it, taking the roads along the coast, Joaquim Sassa suggested, No, no, it isn't worth it, Pedro Orce replied, these things have to happen at the right moment, before one's enthusiasm flags, it's right now that the rock should be passing before our very eyes, while we're still feeling excited, we were in the right mood but not any more, Well, what shall we do, then, José Anaiço asked, Let's go, Don't you want to stay, You can no longer live your dream once the dream has gone, In that case, let's leave tomorrow, So soon, I have to get back to school, And I to my office, And I've always got my pharmacy.

They went to look for Deux Chevaux, but while they are searching and having some difficulty finding the car, this is the moment to mention that many thousands of people who achieved neither voice nor vote in this story, who have not made even a brief appearance at the edges of the scene, thousands of people who have not budged for the last ten days and nights, who ate from the provisions they had brought along, who then, when they ran out on the second day, went to buy whatever they could find locally, and cooked in the open air, on great bonfires that were like pyres from another age, and not even those who had run out of money went hungry, where there was food for one there was food for all, we are enjoying a revival of fraternity, if such a thing has ever been humanly possible or is likely to return. Pedro Orce, José Anaiço, and Joaquim Sassa are not about to experience this admirable fraternity, they have turned their backs on the sea, and now it is their turn to be looked at suspiciously by those hordes of people who are still descending.

Meantime darkness has fallen, the first lights go on. Let's go, said José Anaiço Orce will remain silent, sitting on the back seat, looking sad, his eyes closed, it has to be now or never, we shall never have a better opportunity to recall the Portuguese refrain, Where are you going, I'm off to the party, Where have you come from, I've come from the party, even without the help of exclamation points and pauses, one can readily see the difference between the joyful anticipation of the first reply and the disillusioned weariness of the second, they only look alike on the page on which they're written. During the entire journey, only six words were spoken, You must have dinner with me, they came from the lips of Pedro Orce, he feels obliged to be hospitable. José Anaiço and Joaquim Sassa did not feel it necessary to make any reply, some might think they were being impolite by remaining silent, but such people know very little about human nature, those better informed would testify that the three men had become close friends.

They reach Orce in the dead of night. The roads at this hour are a desert of shadows and silence, Deux Chevaux can be left at the door of the pharmacy, and it is no bad thing that they should give it a rest, tomorrow the car will be back on the road carrying the three men, a matter about to be decided indoors as they sit round the table enjoying a simple meal, for Pedro Orce also lives alone and there is not time enough to prepare anything elaborate. They switched on the television, the news is broadcast hourly, and they saw Gibraltar, not simply separated from Spain, but already at a considerable distance, like an island abandoned in the middle of the ocean, transformed, poor thing, into a peak, a sugarloaf, a reef, with its thousand cannon out of action. Even if they should insist on opening new loopholes on the northern side, perhaps to gratify imperial pride, they would be throwing their money into the sea, in both the literal and the figurative senses. Those scenes undoubtedly made an impression, but were nothing when compared to the shock produced by a series of satellite pictures showing the progressive widening of the canal between the peninsula and France, flesh froze and hair bristled at the sight of this great catastrophe, beyond human powers, for this was no longer a canal but open sea, where ships sailed at will, over water that had truly never been sailed before. Obviously, the displacement could not be observed, at this altitude a speed of seven hundred and fifty meters per hour cannot be captured by the naked eye, but for one observing it was as if the great mass of stone were shifting in his head, sensitive people almost fainted, others complained of feeling dizzy. And there were pictures that had been taken from aboard the indefatigable helicopters, the gigantic Pyrenean escarpment, cut vertically, and the minute swarm of ants heading south, like a sudden migration, just to see Gibraltar adrift, an optical illusion, for it is we who are being carried off with the current, and also, to add a colorful detail, an entry worthy of a diary, a flock of starlings, thousands of them, like a cloud obscuring one's field of vision, darkening the sky. Even the birds are responding to the crowd's excitement, that was the verb the announcer used, responding, when we know from natural history that birds have their own good reasons for going whithersoever they choose or must, they act neither for me nor for you, at most for José Anaiço, who ungratefully confesses, I'd forgotten about them.

There were also shots of Portugal, taken on the Atlantic coast, showing the waves beating on the rocks or swirling over the sands, and lots of people watching the horizon, all with the tragic expression of someone who for centuries has been prepared for the unknown and fears that it may not come after all, or may turn out to be no different from the common, banal experiences of everyday life. There they are now, as Unamuno described them, his swarthy face cupped in the palms of his hands, Fix your eyes where the lonely sun sets in the immense sea, all nations with the sea to the west do the same, this race is swarthy, there is no other particularity, and it has sailed the seas. Lyrical, ecstatic, the Spanish announcer declaims, Look at the Portuguese, all along their golden beaches, once but no longer the prow of Europe, for we have left the European quayside to sail once more the Atlantic waves, what admiral will guide us, what port awaits us, the closing shot showed a young lad throwing a pebble into the sea, practicing the art of ricochet, one that requires no training, and Joaquim Sassa said, He has the strength of his years, the stone couldn't possibly go any farther, but the peninsula, or whatever it might be, appeared to be advancing with even greater vigor over the deep sea, so different from what it normally is in the summer. The final item of news was given by the announcer, in passing, as if he did not consider it very important, Some volatility has been observed among the population, lots of people are leaving their homes, not only in Andalusia, there we know the reason, but, bearing in mind that most of them are heading for the sea, we may assume that they are driven by natural curiosity, in any case we can assure our viewers that there is nothing to see on the coast, as we have just confirmed, all those Portuguese who were staring at the sea, stared and saw nothing, let us not make the same mistake. Then Pedro Orce said, If you have room for me, I'm coming with you.

Joaquim Sassa and José Anaiço remained silent, they could not understand why such a sensible Spaniard should want to visit the regions and beaches of Portugal. The question was worth raising, and as the owner of Deux Chevaux, it was up to Joaquim Sassa to ask, and Pedro Orce replied, I don't want to stay here, with the earth shaking under my feet all the time, and people telling me that I'm only imagining things, You might well feel the earth shaking in Portugal too, and very likely people there will say much the same thing, José Anaiço told him, and we have our jobs waiting for us. I won't be a burden to you, just take me with you and leave me in Lisbon, where I've never been, I'll come back here one day, And what about your family and your pharmacy, You must have gathered by now that I have no family, I'm the last survivor, the pharmacy will be all right, I have an assistant who will look after things. There was nothing more to be said, no reason for refusing, We'll be glad of your company, was the phrase Joaquim Sassa used, The worst thing would be if they were to detain you at the frontier, José Anaiço reminded him, I'll tell them I've been touring Spain, so I couldn't possibly have known that anyone was looking for me, and that I'm just about to present myself to the authorities, but it's unlikely there will be any need for explanations, they're sure to be paying more attention to those who are leaving than to those who are entering, Let's cross over at some other frontier post, I'm worried about the starlings, José Anaiço reminded them, and, having spoken, he spread out on the table a map of the whole Iberian peninsula, drawn and colored at a time when everything was terra firma and the ossified callus of the Pyrenees discouraged any temptation to venture beyond, in silence the three men stood looking at the flat area representing this part of the world as if they failed to recognize it, Strabo used to say that the peninsula is formed like the hide of an ox, Pedro Orce muttered these words earnestly, and despite the warm night Joaquim Sassa and José Anaiço broke out in goose pimples, as if suddenly confronted by the Cyclopean beast that was about to be sacrificed and skinned in order to burden the continent of Europe with yet another carcass that would go on bleeding until the end of time.

The open map showed the two countries, Portugal indented, suspended, Spain unhinged to the south, and the regions, the provinces, the districts, the thick rubble of the major cities, the dust of the towns and villages, but not of all of them, for dust is often invisible to the naked eye, Venta Micena being merely one example. Their hands smooth and stroke the paper, they pass over Alentejo and continue northwards, as if they were caressing a human face, from right to left, following the hands of the clock, the direction of time, the Beiras, Ribatejo before them, and then Trás-os-Montes and Minho, Galicia, Asturias, the Basque country and Navarre, Castile and Leon, Aragon and Catalonia, Valencia, Estremadura, both the Spanish and the Portuguese, Andalusia where we still find ourselves, the Algarve, then José Anaiço pointed with his finger to the mouth of the Guadiana and said, Let's enter through here.