Sulle Moresche cetre."
(No more does Granada stand alone on her silent stones: the hymn flies to the Alhambra on Moorish lyres.)
And now, as I write them again, it seems to me that the music of the band of the National Guard of Turin inspires peace and gladness more even surely than Moorish lyres, and that the pavement of the porticoes of the Po, although it be ever so silent, is better laid and smoother than the stones of Granada.
GRANADA.
The journey from Malaga to Granada was the most adventurous and unfortunate that I made in Spain.
In order that my compassionate readers may pity me as much as I desire, they must know (I am ashamed to occupy people with these little details) that at Malaga I had eaten only the lightest sort of an Andalusian repast, of which at the moment of departure I retained a very vague recollection. But I started, feeling sure that I could alight at some railway-station where there would be one of those rooms or public choking-places where one enters at a gallop, eats until one is out of breath, pays as one scampers out to rush into a crowded carriage, suffocated and robbed, to curse the schedule, travel, and the minister of public works who deceives the country. I departed, and for the first hours it was delightful. The country was all gently sloping hills and green fields, dotted with villages crowned with palms and cypresses, and in the carriage, between two old men who rode with their eyes shut, there was a little Andalusian who kept looking around with a roguish smile which seemed to say, "Go on; your lovelorn glances do not offend me." But the train crept along as slowly as a worn-out diligence, and we stopped only a few moments at the stations. By sunset my stomach began to cry for help, and, to render the pangs of hunger even more severe, I was obliged to make a good part of the journey on foot. The train stopped at an unsafe bridge, and all the passengers got out and filed around, two by two, to meet the train on the other side of the river. We were surrounded by the rocks of the Sierra Nevada, in a wild, desert place, which made it seem as if we were a company of hostages led by a band of brigands. When we had clambered into the carriage the train crawled along no faster than before, and my stomach began to complain more desperately than at first. After a long time we arrived at a station all crowded with trains, where a large part of the travellers hurried out before I could reach the step.
"Where are you going?" asked a railroad official, who had seen me alight.