from among groves and vineyards
were rustic retreats of the Moors, to enjoy the refreshment of their
gardens.

The airy palace with its tall white towers and long arcades, which
breast yon mountain, among pompous groves and hanging gardens, is the
Generaliffe, a summer palace of the Moorish kings, to which they
resorted during the sultry months, to enjoy a still more breezy region
than that of the Alhambra. The naked summit of the height above it,
where you behold some shapeless ruins, is the Silla del Moro, or seat of
the Moor; so called from having been a retreat of the unfortunate
Boabdil during the time of an insurrection, where he seated himself and
looked down mournfully upon his rebellious city.

A murmuring sound of water now and then rises from the valley. It is
from the aqueduct of yon Moorish mill nearly at the foot of the hill.
The avenue of trees beyond is the Alameda along the bank of the Darro, a
favorite resort in evenings, and a rendezvous of lovers in the summer
nights, when the guitar may be heard at a late hour from the benches
along its walks. At present there are but a few loitering monks to be
seen there, and a group of water carriers from the fountain of
Avellanos.

You start! 'Tis nothing but a hawk we have frightened from his nest.
This old tower is a complete brooding-place for vagrant birds. The
swallow and martlet abound in every chink and cranny, and circle about
it the whole day long; while at night, when all other birds have gone to
rest, the moping owl comes out of its lurking place and utters its
boding cry from the battlements. See how the hawk we have dislodged
sweeps away below us, skimming over the tops of the trees, and sailing
up to ruins above the Generaliffe.

Let us leave this side of the tower and turn our eyes to the west. Here
you behold in the distance a range of mountains bounding the Vega, the
ancient barrier between Moslem Granada and the land of the Christians.
Among the heights you may still discern warrior towns, whose gray walls
and battlements seem of a piece with the rocks on which they are built;
while here and there is a solitary atalaya or watch-tower, mounted on
some lofty point, and looking down as if it were from the sky, into the
valleys on either side. It was down the defiles of these mountains, by
the pass of Lope, that the Christian armies descended into the Vega. It
was round the base of yon gray and naked mountain, almost insulated from
the rest, a