Leaving this eventful pile, we continued our
course, skirting the fruitful orchards of the Generalife,
in which two or three nightingales were
pouring forth a rich strain of melody. Behind
these orchards we passed a number of Moorish
tanks, with a door cut into the rocky bosom of the
hill, but closed up. These tanks, Mateo informed
me, were favourite bathing-places of himself and
his comrades in boyhood, until frightened away by
a story of a hideous Moor, who used to issue forth
from the door in the rock to entrap unwary bathers.

Leaving these haunted tanks behind us, we pursued
our ramble up a solitary mule-path that wound
among the hills, and soon found ourselves amidst
wild and melancholy mountains, destitute of trees,
and here and there tinted with scanty verdure.
Every thing within sight was severe and sterile,
and it was scarcely possible to realize the idea that
but a short distance behind us was the Generalife,
with its blooming orchards and terraced gardens,
and that we were in the vicinity of delicious Granada,
that city of groves and fountains. But such
is the nature of Spain—wild and stern the moment
it escapes from cultivation; the desert and the garden
are ever side by side.

The narrow defile up which we were passing is
called, according to Mateo, el Barranco de la

[figure description] Page 134.[end figure description]

tinaja, or the ravine of the jar, because a jar full
of Moorish gold was found here in old times. The
brain of poor Mateo is continually running upon
these golden legends.

“But what is the meaning of the cross I see
yonder upon a heap of stones, in that narrow part
of the ravine?”

“Oh, that's nothing—a muleteer was murdered
there some years since.”

“So then, Mateo, you have robbers and murderers
even at the gates of the Alhambra?”

“Not at present, Señor; that was formerly,
when there used to be many loose fellows about
the fortress; but they've all been weeded out.
Not but that the gypsies who live in caves in the
hill-sides, just out of the fortress, are many of
them fit for any thing; but we have had no murder
about here for a long time past. The man
who murdered the muleteer was hanged in the
fortress.”

Our path continued up the barranco, with a
bold, rugged height to our left, called the “Silla
del Moro,” or, chair of the Moor, from the tradition
already alluded to, that the unfortunate
Boabdil fled thither during a popular insurrection,
and remained all day seated on the rocky summit,
looking mournfully down on his factious
city.

[figure description] Page 135.[end figure description]

We at length arrived on the highest part of the
promontory above Granada, called the mountain
of the sun. The evening was approaching; the
setting sun just gilded the loftiest heights. Here
and there a solitary shepherd might be descried
driving his flock down the declivities, to be
folded for the night; or a muleteer and his lagging
animals, threading some mountain path, to
arrive at the city gates before nightfall.

Presently the deep tones of the cathedral bell
came swelling up the defiles, proclaiming the hour
of “oration” or prayer. The note was responded
to from the belfry of every church, and from the
sweet bells of the convents among the mountains.
The shepherd paused on the fold of the hill, the
muleteer in the midst of the road, each took off
his hat and remained motionless for a time, murmuring
his evening prayer. There is always something
pleasingly solemn in this custom, by which,
at a melodious signal, every human being throughout
the land unites at the same moment in a tribute
of thanks to God for the mercies of the day. It
spreads a transient sanctity over the land, and the
sight of the sun sinking in all his glory, adds not
a little to the solemnity of the scene.

In the present instance the effect was heightened
by the wild and lonely nature of the place.

[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]

We were on the naked and broken summit of the
haunted mountain of the sun, where ruined tanks
and cisterns, and the mouldering foundations of
extensive buildings, spoke of former populousness,
but where all was now silent and desolate.

As we were wandering among these traces of
old times, Mateo pointed out to me a circular pit,
that seemed to penetrate deep into the bosom of
the mountain. It was evidently a deep well,
dug by the indefatigable Moors, to obtain their
favourite element in its greatest purity. Mateo,
however, had a different story, and much more to
his homour. This was, according to tradition, an
entrance to the subterranean caverns of the mountain,
in which Boabdil and his court lay bound in
magic spell; and from whence they sallied forth
at night, at allotted times, to revisit their ancient
abodes.

The deepening twilight, which, in this climate,
is of such short duration, admonished us to leave
this haunted ground. As we descended the mountain
defile, there was no longer herdsmen or muleteer
to be seen, nor anything to be heard but
our own footsteps and the lonely chirping of the
cricket. The shadows of the valleys grew deeper
and deeper, until all was dark around us. The
lofty summit of the Sierra Nevada alone retained

[figure description] Page 137.[end figure description]

a lingering gleam of daylight; its snowy peaks
glaring against the dark blue firmament, and seeming
close to us from the extreme purity of the atmosphere.

“How near the Sierra looks this evening!”
said Mateo; “it seems as if you could touch it
with your hand; and yet it is many long leagues
off.” While he was speaking, a star appeared
over the snowy summit of the mountain, the only
one yet visible in the heavens, and so pure, so
large, so bright and beautiful, as to call forth ejaculations
of delight from honest Mateo.

“Que estrella hermosa! que clara y limpia es!—
No pueda ser estrella mas brillante!”

(What a beautiful star! how clear and lucid—
no star can be more brilliant!)

I have often remarked this sensibility of the
common people of Spain to the charms of natural
objects. The lustre of a star, the beauty or fragrance
of a flower, the chrystal purity of a fountain,
will inspire them with a kind of poetical delight;
and then, what euphonious words their
magnificent language affords, with which to give
utterance to their transports!

“But what lights are those, Mateo, which I see
twinkling along the Sierra Nevada, just below the
snowy region, and which might be taken for stars,

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

only that they are ruddy, and against the dark
side of the mountain?”

“Those, Señor, are fires, made by the men who
gather snow and ice for the supply of Granada.
They go up every afternoon with mules and asses,
and take turns, some to rest and warm themselves
by the fires, while others fill the panniers with
ice. They then set off down the mountain, so as
to reach the gates of Granada before sunrise. That
Sierra Nevada, Señor, is a lump of ice in the middle
of Andalusia, to keep it all cool in summer.”

It was now completely dark; we were passing
through the barranco, where stood the cross of the
murdered muleteer; when I beheld a number of
lights moving at a distance, and apparently advancing
up the ravine. On nearer approach, they
proved to be torches borne by a train of uncouth
figures arrayed in black: it would have been a
procession dreary enough at any time, but was
peculiarly so in this wild and solitary place.

Mateo drew near, and told me in a low voice,
that it was a funeral train bearing a corpse to the
burying-ground among the hills.

As the procession passed by, the lugubrious light
of the torches falling on the rugged features and
funeral-weeds of the attendants, had the most fantastic
effect, but was perfectly ghastly, as it

[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]

revealed the countenance of the corpse, which according
to the Spanish custom, was borne uncovered
on an open bier. I remained for some time gazing
after the dreary train as it wound up the dark defile
of the mountain. It put me in mind of the
old story of a procession of demons bearing the
body of a sinner up the crater of Stromboli.

“Ah! Señor,” cried Mateo, “I could tell you a
story of a procession once seen among these mountains,
but then you'd laugh at me, and say it was
one of the legacies of my grandfather the tailor.”

“By no means, Mateo. There is nothing I
relish more than a marvellous tale.”

“Well, Señor, it is about one of those very men
we have been talking of, who gather snow on the
Sierra Nevada.

“You must know, that a great many years since,
in my grandfather's time, there was an old fellow,
Tio Nicolo by name, who had filled the panniers
of his mule with snow and ice, and was returning
down the mountain. Being very drowsy, he
mounted upon the mule, and soon falling asleep,
went with his head nodding and bobbing about
from side to side, while his sure-footed old mule
stepped along the edge of precipices, and down
steep and broken barrancos, just as safe and steady
as if it had been on plain ground. At length, Tio

[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]

Nicolo awoke, and gazed about him, and rubbed
his eyes—and, in good truth, he had reason. The
moon shone almost as bright as day, and he saw
the city below him, as plain as your hand, and
shining with its white buildings, like a silver platter
in the moonshine; but, Lord! Señor, it was
nothing like the city he had left a few hours before!
Instead of the cathedral, with its great dome
and turrets, and the churches with their spires, and
the convents with their pinnacles, all surmounted
with the blessed cross, he saw nothing but Moorish
mosques, and minarets, and cupolas, all topped off
with glittering crescents, such as you see on the
Barbary flags. Well, Señor, as you may suppose,
Tio Nicolo was mightily puzzled at all this, but
while he was gazing down upon the city, a great
army came marching up the mountains, winding
along the ravines, sometimes in the moonshine,
sometimes in the shade. As it drew nigh, he saw
that there were horse and foot all in Moorish armour.
Tio Nicolo tried to scramble out of their
way, but his old mule stood stock still, and refused
to budge, trembling, at the same time, like a leaf—
for dumb beasts, Señor, are just as much frightened
at such things as human beings. Well, Señor, the
hobgoblin army came marching by; there were
men that seemed to blow trumpets, and others to

[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]

beat drums and strike cymbals, yet never a sound
did they make; they all moved on without the
least noise, just as I have seen painted armies move
across the stage in the theatre of Granada, and all
looked as pale as death. At last, in the rear of the
army, between two black Moorish horsemen, rode
the Grand Inquisitor of Granada, on a mule as
white as snow. Tio Nicolo wondered to see him
in such company, for the Inquisitor was famous for
his hatred of Moors, and indeed, of all kinds of
Infidels, Jews, and Heretics, and used to hunt them
out with fire and scourge. However, Tio Nicolo
felt himself safe, now that there was a priest of
such sanctity at hand. So making the sign of the
cross, he called out for his benediction, when,
hombre! he received a blow that sent him and his
old mule over the edge of a steep bank, down
which they rolled, head over heels, to the bottom!
Tio Nicolo did not come to his senses until long
after sunrise, when he found himself at the bottom
of a deep ravine, his mule grazing beside him, and
his panniers of snow completely melted. He
crawled back to Granada sorely bruised and battered,
but was glad to find the city looking as usual,
with Christian churches and crosses. When he
told the story of his night's adventure, every one
laughed at him; some said he had dreamed it all,

[figure description] Page 142.[end figure description]

as he dozed on his mule; others thought it all a
fabrication of his own—but what was strange, Se
ñor, and made people afterwards think more seriously
of the matter, was, that the Grand Inquisitor
died within the year. I have often heard my
grandfather, the tailor, say that there was more
meant by that hobgoblin army bearing off the resemblance
of the priest, than folks dared to surmise.”

“Then you would insinuate, friend Mateo, that
there is a kind of Moorish limbo, or purgatory, in
the bowels of these mountains, to which the padre
Inquisitor was borne off.”

“God forbid, Señor! I know nothing of the
matter—I only relate what I heard from my grandfather.”

By the time Mateo had finished the tale which
I have more succinctly related, and which was interlarded
with many comments, and spun out with
minute details, we reached the gate of the Alhambra.

p226-146

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