In the bottom of the fissure—which is 600 feet below the town—are numerous picturesque water-mills; and, viewed from thence, Alhama furnishes an excellent subject for the painter: The situation of the crumbling old fortress is romantic; the sides of the hills rising behind it are clad with vines, and their summits clothed with forest trees; whilst beyond are seen the distant peaks of the Zafaraya passes.
The hot springs are about a mile from the town, on the left of the road leading to Granada. The source which supplies the baths is very copious, and its heat is about 110° of Fahrenheit. The water contains various salts and a considerable quantity of sulphur, smells rather offensively, and certainly does not taste like chicken-broth, as some people maintain that of Wiesbaden does; though, for my own part, I confess I never could discover any chicken flavour in the scalding liquid of the fashionable koch brunnen, unless it was of the eggs, from which, after three weeks’ incubation, the chickens had not been released.
The mineral water of Alhama has been found very efficacious in obstinate cases of rheumatism, dyspepsia, and hypochondriasis, and is considered infallible in the cure of gun-shot wounds. Its virtues were doubtless known to the Romans; indeed, one of the baths is said (and appears) to be, the work of that people. But the vaulted building which now encloses the principal source is evidently of Moorish workmanship. The reservoir, or bath, that first receives the beneficent stream, is built at the foot of a scarped rock, from a narrow crevice in the face of which the streaming water gushes, whilst the base of the same rock is washed by the icy-cold current of the Marchan.
After visiting the baths, we returned to Alhama to pass the night—to sleep I cannot say, since not an eye could any one of the party close, during the half dozen tedious hours that, stretched on our cloaks, (having very soon been driven from the wool-stuffed mattresses afforded by the house) we lay alternately invoking Morpheus and Phœbus, and exclaiming, “Woe is me, Alhama!”
We left the wretched venta as soon as the light was sufficient to enable us to follow the winding road down the steep side of the mountain, and, reaching once more the bed of the Marchan, crossed to its right bank, and took the road to Granada, by way of La Mala.
In about two hours we passed within gunshot of the village of Cacin, leaving it on our left; and then, fording a stream of the same name which runs towards the village, proceeded, by a villanously stony road, over a very broken, but not mountainous country, to the solitary venta of Huelma, which, though distant only about fifteen miles from Alhama, took us four hours and a half to reach.
We were glad, and at the same time surprised, to find that the house, miserable as its exterior bespoke it, could furnish materials for a human breakfast, as well as a feed of barley for our famished horses; an invigorator which the mozo of the posada at Alhama had certainly forgotten to give the poor animals at cock-crow, according to his plighted word.
From the venta of Huelma to La Mala is six miles of very bad road, and very uninteresting country. La Mala contains a royal salt manufactory, and appears to be a thriving village. The water from which the salt is extracted is pumped up from wells sunk in all directions round the place, and is conducted by pipes and channels into extensive pans, where, exposed to the action of the sun and air, the process of evaporation is soon completed.
All the hills in the vicinity contain so much salt, that even the little stream which runs through the village, and supplies its inhabitants with this necessary of life, is strongly impregnated with it, and it is difficult to procure drinkable water any where in the neighbourhood.
About two miles beyond La Mala (the road having reached the summit of a hill of some height), the far-famed city, and its glorious vega—which we had all the morning been looking for on gaining each succeeding eminence—at length burst upon our impatient sight. It is a magnificent view; though the city is at too great a distance (full seven miles) to be a striking object in a prospect of such vast extent; and the unvarying olive-green tint of the plain, and the total want of (perceptible) water, give a sameness to the scene that somewhat disappointed us. The mountains, too, that rise to the northward of the Genil, dividing that river from the Guadalquiver, appeared tamely outlined, after those we had so lately traversed.