I was taken in hand by some of the prominent people and shown the places
of interest in the village. Among those visited and one that greatly
interested me, was the olive mills. The town is noted for the production
of a superior olive oil; but the mode of producing it is most
primitive, being almost the same as that used by the Moors hundreds of
years ago. They first place the round, green olives in sacks that are
then set in a large stone bowl into which a flat cover lifts. An old
time screw with beam attachment presses on the stone cover, and as an
ass, hitched to the end of the beam, tramps wearily round and round the
screw presses the stone tight on the olives, squeezing the oil into
cemented grooves at the bottom of the bowl through which it flows into
casks. The refuse, or pummies, as we would call them, is fed to the
hogs and cattle. It struck me at the time that with our improved
American machinery, we could extract about four times as much oil out of
the pummies thrown away, as they got out at the first pressing.
"Another place I visited under the escort of the good padre and an
officer, was the prison. This prison contained as choice a collection
of murderers as ever drew a knife across a helpless traveler's throat.
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