bearing off the prince and princess. The king and the physicians gazed
after it with open mouths and straining eyes until it became a little
speck on the white bosom of a cloud, and then disappeared in the blue
vault of heaven.
The king in a rage summoned his treasurer. "How is this," said he, "that
thou hast suffered an infidel to get possession of such a talisman?"
"Alas, sir, we knew not its nature, nor could we decipher the inscription
of the box. If it be indeed the carpet of the throne of the wise Solomon,
it is possessed of magic power, and can transport its owner from place to
place through the air."
The king assembled a mighty army, and set off for Granada in pursuit of
the fugitives. His march was long and toilsome. Encamping in the Vega,
he sent a herald to demand restitution of his daughter. The king himself
came forth with all his court to meet him. In the king he beheld the
real minstrel, for Ahmed had succeeded to the throne on the death of his
father, and the beautiful Aldegonda was his sultana.
The Christian king was easily pacified when he found that his daughter was
suffered to continue in her faith; not that he was particularly pious, but
religion is always a point of pride and etiquette with princes. Instead
of bloody battles, there was a succession of feasts and rejoicings, after
which the king returned well pleased to Toledo, and the youthful couple
continued to reign as happily as wisely, in the Alhambra.
It is proper to add, that the owl and the parrot had severally followed
the prince by easy stages to Granada; the former travelling by night, and
stopping at the various hereditary possessions of his family; the latter
figuring in gay circles of every town and city on his route.
Ahmed gratefully requited the services which they had rendered on his
pilgrimage. He appointed the owl his prime minister, the parrot his master
of ceremonies. It is needless to say that never was a realm more sagely
administered, nor a court conducted with more exact punctilio.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
A RAMBLE AMONG THE HILLS
I used frequently to amuse myself towards the close of the day, when
the heat had subsided, with taking long rambles about the neighbouring
hills, and the deep umbrageous valleys, accompanied by my historiographic
squire, Mateo, to whose passion for gossiping I on such occasions gave the
most unbounded license; and there was scarce a rock, or ruin, or broken
fountain, or lonely glen, about which he had not some marvellous story;
or, above all, some golden legend; for never was poor devil so munificent
in dispensing hidden treasures.
In the course of one of these strolls Mateo was more than usually
communicative. It was toward sunset that we sallied forth from the great
Gate of Justice, and ascended an alley of trees until we came to a clump
of figs and pomegranates at the foot of the Tower of the Seven Floors (_de
los siete suelos_), the identical tower whence Boabdil is said to have
issued, when he surrendered his capital. Here, pointing to a low archway
in the foundation, Mateo informed me of a monstrous sprite or hobgoblin,
said to infest this tower, ever since the time of the Moors, and to guard
the treasures of a Moslem king. Sometimes it issues forth in the dead
of the night, and scours the avenues of the Alhambra, and the streets
of Granada, in the shape of a headless horse, pursued by six dogs with
terrible yells and howlings.
"But have you ever met with it yourself, Mateo, in any of your rambles?"
demanded I.
[Illustration: _Among the Hills._]
"No, _Señor_, God be thanked! but my grandfather, the tailor, knew several
persons that had seen it, for it went about much oftener in his time
than at present; sometimes in one shape, sometimes in another. Everybody
in Granada has heard of the _Belludo_, for the old women and the nurses
frighten the children with it when they cry. Some say it is the spirit
of a cruel Moorish king, who killed his six sons and buried them in these
vaults, and that they hunt him at nights in revenge."
I forbear to dwell upon the marvellous details given by the simple-minded
Mateo about this redoubtable phantom, which has, in fact, been time
out of mind a favourite theme of nursery tales and popular tradition in
Granada, and of which honourable mention is made by an ancient and learned
historian and topographer of the place.
[Illustration: _Among the Hills._]
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.
[Illustration: _Fruitful Orchards._]
Leaving these haunted tanks behind us, we pursued our ramble up a solitary
mule-path winding among the hills, and soon found ourselves amidst wild
and melancholy mountains, destitute of trees, and here and there tinted
with scanty verdure. Everything within sight was severe and sterile, and
it was scarcely possible to realise 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 tinaja_, or the ravine of the jar, because a jar full
of Moorish gold was found here in old time. The brain of poor Mateo was
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?"
[Illustration: _The Desert and the Garden._]
"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 anything; 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.
[Illustration: _Garden at Seville._]
[Illustration: _Silla del Moro._]
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. 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 about among these traces of old times, we came to
a circular pit, penetrating deep into the bosom of the mountain; which
Mateo pointed out as one of the wonders and mysteries of the place. I
supposed it to be a well dug by the indefatigable Moors, to obtain their
favourite element in its greatest purity. Mateo, however, had a different
story, and one much more to his humour. According to a tradition, in which
his father and grandfather firmly believed, this was an entrance to the
subterranean caverns of the mountain, in which Boabdil and his court lay
bound in magic spell; and whence they sallied forth at night, at allotted
times, to revisit their ancient abodes.
"Ah, _Señor_, this mountain is full of wonders of the kind. In another
place there was a hole somewhat like this, and just within it hung an
iron pot by a chain; nobody knew what was in that pot, for it was always
covered up; but everybody supposed it full of Moorish gold. Many tried
to draw it forth, for it seemed just within reach; but the moment it was
touched it would sink far, far down, and not come up again for some time.
At last one who thought it must be enchanted touched it with the cross,
by way of breaking the charm; and faith he did break it, for the pot sank
out of sight and never was seen any more.
"All this is a fact, _Señor_; for my grandfather was an eyewitness."
"What! Mateo; did he see the pot?"
"No, _Señor_, but he saw the hole where the pot had hung."
"It's the same thing, Mateo."
The deepening twilight, which in this climate is of short duration,
admonished us to leave this haunted ground. As we descended the mountain
defile, there was no longer herdsman nor muleteer to be seen, nor
anything to be heard but our own footsteps and the lonely chirping of
the cricket. The shadows of the valley grew deeper and deeper, until all
was dark around us. The lofty summit of the Sierra Nevada alone retained
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--a star could not 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 crystal 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,
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 mountains,
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 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_ [Uncle Nicholas] 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 surefooted 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 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 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, as he dozed
on his mule; others thought it all a fabrication of his own; but what was
strange, _Señor_, 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.
The marvellous stories hinted at by Mateo, in the early part of our
ramble about the Tower of the Seven Floors, set me as usual upon my goblin
researches. I found that the redoubtable phantom, the _Belludo_, had been
time out of mind a favourite theme of nursery tales and popular traditions
in Granada, and that honourable mention had even been made of it by an
ancient historian and topographer of the place. The scattered members of
one of these popular traditions I have gathered together, collated them
with infinite pains, and digested them into the following legend; which
only wants a number of learned notes and references at bottom to take its
rank among those concrete productions gravely passed upon the world for
Historical Facts.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: _La Plaza de los Algibes._]
LEGEND OF THE MOOR'S LEGACY
Just within the fortress of the Alhambra, in front of the royal palace,
is a broad open esplanade, called the Place or Square of the Cisterns,
(_La Plaza de los Algibes_), so called from being undermined by reservoirs
of water, hidden from sight, and which have existed from the time of the
Moors. At one corner of this esplanade is a Moorish well, cut through the
living rock to a great depth, the water of which is cold as ice and clear
as crystal. The wells made by the Moors are always in repute, for it is
well known what pains they took to penetrate to the purest and sweetest
springs and fountains. The one of which we now speak is famous throughout
Granada, insomuch that water-carriers, some bearing great water-jars on
their shoulders, others driving asses before them laden with earthern
vessels, are ascending and descending the steep woody avenues of the
Alhambra, from early dawn until a late hour of the night.
Fountains and wells, ever since the scriptural days, have been noted
gossiping-places in hot climates; and at the well in question there is a
kind of perpetual club kept up during the livelong day, by the invalids,
old women, and other curious do-nothing folk of the fortress, who sit here
on the stone benches, under an awning spread over the well to shelter the
toll-gatherer from the sun, and dawdle over the gossip of the fortress,
and question every water-carrier that arrives about the news of the
city, and make long comments on everything they hear and see. Not an
hour of the day but loitering housewives and idle maid-servants may be
seen, lingering, with pitcher on head or in hand, to hear the last of the
endless tattle of these worthies.
[Illustration]
Among the water-carriers who once resorted to this well, there was a
sturdy, strong-backed, bandy-legged little fellow, named Pedro Gil, but
called Peregil for shortness. Being a water-carrier, he was a _Gallego_,
or native of Gallicia, of course. Nature seems to have formed races of
men, as she has of animals, for different kinds of drudgery. In France
the shoeblacks are all Savoyards, the porters of hotels all Swiss, and
in the days of hoops and hair-powder in England, no man could give the
regular swing to a sedan-chair but a bog-trotting Irishman. So in Spain,
the carriers of water and bearers of burdens are all sturdy little natives
of Gallicia. No man says, "Get me a porter," but, "call a _Gallego_."
To return from this digression, Peregil the _Gallego_ had begun business
with merely a great earthen jar which he carried upon his shoulder; by
degrees he rose in the world, and was enabled to purchase an assistant
of a correspondent class of animals, being a stout shaggy-haired donkey.
On each side of this his long-eared aide-de-camp, in a kind of pannier,
were slung his water-jars, covered with fig leaves to protect them from
the sun. There was not a more industrious water-carrier in all Granada,
nor one more merry withal. The streets rang with his cheerful voice as
he trudged after his donkey, singing forth the usual summer note that
resounds through the Spanish towns: "_Quien quiere agua--agua mas fria
que la nieve?_"--"Who wants water--water colder than snow? Who wants
water from the well of the Alhambra, cold as ice and clear as crystal?"
When he served a customer with a sparkling glass, it was always with a
pleasant word that caused a smile; and if, perchance, it was a comely
dame or dimpling damsel, it was always with a sly leer and a compliment
to her beauty that was irresistible. Thus Peregil the _Gallego_ was noted
throughout all Granada for being one of the civilest, pleasantest, and
happiest of mortals. Yet it is not he who sings loudest and jokes most
that has the lightest heart. Under all this air of merriment, honest
Peregil had his cares and troubles. He had a large family of ragged
children to support, who were hungry and clamorous as a nest of young
swallows, and beset him with their outcries for food whenever he came
home of an evening. He had a helpmate, too, who was anything but a help
to him. She had been a village beauty before marriage, noted for her
skill at dancing the bolero and rattling the castanets; and she still
retained her early propensities, spending the hard earnings of honest
Peregil in frippery, and laying the very donkey under requisition for
junketing parties into the country on Sundays and saints' days, and
those innumerable holidays, which are rather more numerous in Spain
than the days of the week. With all this she was a little of a slattern,
something more of a lie-abed, and, above all, a gossip of the first water;
neglecting house, household, and everything else, to loiter slipshod in
the houses of her gossip neighbours.
He, however, who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, accommodates the
yoke of matrimony to the submissive neck. Peregil bore all the heavy
dispensations of wife and children with as meek a spirit as his donkey
bore the water-jars; and, however he might shake his ears in private,
never ventured to question the household virtues of his slattern spouse.
He loved his children, too, even as an owl loves its owlets, seeing in
them his own image multiplied and perpetuated; for they were a sturdy,
long-backed, bandy-legged little brood. The great pleasure of honest
Peregil was, whenever he could afford himself a scanty holiday, and had a
handful of maravedis to spare, to take the whole litter forth with him,
some in his arms, some tugging at his skirts, and some trudging at his
heels, and to treat them to a gambol among the orchards of the Vega, while
his wife was dancing with her holiday friends in the _Angosturas_ of the
Darro.