Three excursiones departing from Gibraltar. One toward San Roque, Gaucín and Ronda. Another toward Tarifa, Vejer and Chiclana. And the third to Estepona, Marbella, Ojén and Antequera. Various goods travelled these routes but tobacco and cloth were the most desired. With them, circulated ideas, fashion and news. The tobacco store and the protection of the textile industry in Cataluna, was a detriment to that of Andalucia, they were behind the commercial wave that surged and was prolonged, with some variants until a few decades ago. No civility was as appreciated for a woman as a dress-suit and few obtained the fame that they sought.The smugglers routes were nurtured by adventurers, busybodies and esparto-work sellers that fled after the Civil War in 1844.

The monopoly of commodities was managed in Gibraltar, a rock so irregular that it was impossible to see even when observed from a short distance. The bouquet merchants, that made their way through the Mediterranean, anchored in the bay, obligated to wait for the east wind without which no ship could cross the Straight. Many villages and cities lived the smuggler fever; Chiclana, city of spring waters and thermal baths; Gaucín, west of Sierra Bermeja, curled between the Genal rivers and Guadiazo, in the lower slope of the highlands of the Hacho and bordering a platform of a profound ravine where one could catch a glimpse of Africa; Vejer, textured in a network of quaint Arabic lanes and habitated by "cobijadas", women, that until a few years ago still covered their faces. And from Vejer to Ojen, stretching montainous terrain, to the path of Trocha in order to make out Gibraltar, incised in the horizon above the blue background of the Straight.