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Yes, all who drink the water sweet Where Genil's stream and Darro meet, All of bold Albaicins's line, Who mid Alhambra's princes shine The ladies mourn the warrior high, Mirror of love and courtesy; The brave lament him, as their peer; The princes, as their comrade dear; The poor deplore, with hearts that bleed, Their shelter in the time of need.
A Moorish renegade had agreed to guide him into the city by a secret pass. Once within, they were to set fire to the Alcaiceria and others of the principal buildings, and then escape as best they could. At dead of night they set out, provided with the necessary combustibles. Their guide led them up a channel of the river Darro, until they halted under a bridge near the royal gate.
His children are versed in the old Spanish ballads about the exploits of Hernan Perez del Pulgar and Garcilasso de la Vega. The ravages of war had as yet spared a little portion of the Vega of Granada. A green belt of gardens and orchards still flourished round the city, extending along the banks of the Xenil and the Darro.
The delicately ornamented walls; the aromatic groves, mingling with the freshness and the enlivening sounds of fountains and rivers of water; the retired baths, bespeaking purity and refinement; the balconies and galleries; open to the fresh mountain breeze, and overlooking the loveliest scenery of the valley of the Darro and the magnificent expanse of the vega, it is impossible to contemplate this delicious abode and not feel an admiration of the genius and the poetical spirit of those who first devised this earthly paradise.
While we stood there, the funeral procession of the man murdered two nights before came up the street of Gomerez, and passed around the hill under the Vermilion Towers. I made the circuit of the walls before entering the Palace. In the Place of the Cisterns, I stopped to take a drink of the cool water of the Darro, which is brought thither by subterranean channels from the hills.
Of one thing we made memorably sure beyond the gulf of the Darro, and that was the famous gipsy quarter which the traveler visits at the risk of his life in order to have his fortune told.
There is an old Granadian proverb which says: "When Parapanda wears his bonnet, it will rain whether God wills it or no." From the chapel of San Miguel, above the Albaycin, there is a very striking view of the deep gorge of the Darro, at one's feet, with the gardens and white walls of the Generalife rising beyond, and the Silla del Moro and the Mountain of the Sun towering above it.
Thou art in my power, and canst return not, save at my permission." "I have your royal word, sire, for free entrance and safe egress," answered Almamen. "Break it, and Granada is with the Moors till the Darro runs red with the blood of her heroes, and her people strew the vales as the leaves in autumn." "Art thou then thyself of the Jewish faith?" asked the king.
Now one comes upon a broken stone bridge spanning the Darro on a single broad arch of great sweep, under which the noisy river rushes tumultuously down hill, and wonders how long the toppling houses, which overhang the rapids, will maintain their equilibrium.
The whole of one side of this apartment was open to a broad and extensive balcony, which overhung the banks of the winding and moonlit Darro; and in the clearness of the soft night might be distinctly seen the undulating hills, the woods, and orange-groves, which still form the unrivalled landscapes of Granada.
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