nd the cloudless azure of a southern
sky. It is this aerial treasury of snow, which, melting in proportion to
the increase of the summer heat, sends down rivulets and streams through
every glen and gorge of the Alpuxarras, diffusing emerald verdure and
fertility throughout a chain of happy and sequestered valleys.

These mountains may well be called the glory of Granada. They dominate
the whole extent of Andalusia, and may be seen from its most distant
parts. The muleteer hails them as he views their frosty peaks from the
sultry level of the plain; and the Spanish mariner on the deck of his
bark, far, far off on the bosom of the blue Mediterranean, watches them
with a pensive eye, thinks of delightful Granada, and chants in low
voice some old romance about the Moors.

But enough, the sun is high above the mountains, and is pouring his full
fervor upon our heads. Already the terraced roof of the town is hot
beneath our feet; let us abandon it, and descend and refresh ourselves
under the arcades by the fountain of the Lions.

HERVE RIEL

_By_ ROBERT BROWNING

NOTE.--This poem of Browning's furnishes its own historical
setting; it gives date and places and names. All, in fact, that it
does not tell us is that the battle at Cape la Hogue was a part of
the struggle between England and France undertaken because Louis
XIV of France would not acknowledge William III as king of England.

The poem is written in characteristic Browning style. You have read
in the earlier volumes _An Incident of the French Camp_, _How They
Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix_, and _the Pied Piper of
Hamelin_, and are therefore familiar with Browning's custom of
leaving out words, using odd, informal words which another man
might think out of place in poetry, and employing strange,
sometimes jerky, meters.

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,
Did the English fight the French--woe to France!
And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter thro' the blue,
Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,
Came crowding ship on ship to Saint Malo on the Rance,
With the English fleet in view.

'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase;
First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville;
Close on him fled, great and small,
Twenty-two good ships in all;
And