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And then to lean over the parapet of the Tocador and gaze down upon Granada and the Albaycin spread out like a map below; all buried in deep repose; the white palaces and convents sleeping in the moonshine, and beyond all these the vapory vega fading away like a dreamland in the distance.
It will be interesting to record briefly the fate of this city which we have seen taken and retaken. Don Alvaro de Vega remained as governor till the end of July, 1551, when his place was taken by Don Sancho de Leyva; at which time there took place one of those curious military mutinies so characteristic of the sixteenth century.
First the great yellow planet in the west, then, high overhead, the sparkling white of what, had he known it, was Vega; and in a moment a dozen others were in view before he could number them Regulus, Altair, Spica, and, low in the south, the angry fire of Antares. For him they were unnamed, save for the peculiarities he discovered in each.
The house has been restored by the Marquis de la Vega, according to his notion of an old Spanish house, and has the pleasantest small patio in the world, looked down into from a carved wooden gallery, with a pavement of red tiles interset with Moorish tiles of divers colors.
In two minutes the old gentleman was pointing out the constellations the Great Bear hanging low in the north-east, pointing to the Pole star, and across it to Cassiopeia's bright zigzag high in the heavens; the barren square of Pegasus, with its long tail stretching to the Milky Way, and the points that cluster round Perseus; Arcturus, white Vega and yellow Capella; the Twins, and beyond them the Little Dog twinkling through a coppice of naked trees to eastward; yet further round the Pleiads climbing, with red Aldebaran after them; below them Orion's belt, and last of all, Sirius flashing like a diamond, white and red, and resting on the horizon where the dark pasture lands met the sky.
Ever more swiftly the stars closed in about the spot where Antares and Vega had vanished in a phosphorescent haze, until that part of the sky had the semblance of a whirling mass of nebulae, and ever before me yawned vaster gaps of vacant blackness, and the stars shone fewer and fewer.
Found camp F 81 to be in latitude 26 degrees 3 minutes 20 seconds South by meridian altitude of Altair and Vega, and longitude about 129 degrees 53 minutes East. September 1st. Continuing about east along the foot of the Mann Ranges for about fifteen miles, came to Mr. Gosse's bivouac of October 11th, but could find no water; a well that had been dug in the sand was dry.
The foraging parties scoured the country to such effect that they came driving vast flocks and herds before them, enough to supply the place of all that had been swept from the Vega of Granada. The troops which had kept watch upon the rock of Gibraltar returned with word that they had not seen a Christian helmet stirring.
Sirius, Vega, Regulus, Altair, are amongst its leading members. Their spectra are distinguished by the breadth and intensity of the four dark bars due to the absorption of hydrogen, and by the extreme faintness of the metallic lines, of which, nevertheless, hundreds are disclosed by careful examination.
That brave and loyal commander cheered up the spirits of his men and kept the old Moorish king at bay until the approach of Ferdinand, on his second incursion into the Vega, obliged him to make an unwilling retreat to Malaga.
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