"Is this the end of the suburb?" I asked.
My two companions laughed and said, "Look in that direction."
The Alhambra and the Valley of the Darro
I turned and saw along the street that was lost in a distant grove an interminable row of houses. Of houses? Rather of dens dug in the earth, with a bit of wall in front, with holes for windows and crevices for doors, and wild plants of every sort on top and along the sides—veritable caves of beasts, in which by the glow of faint lights, scarcely visible, swarmed the gypsies by hundreds; a people multiplying in the bowels of the mountain, poorer, blacker, and more savage than any seen before; another city, unknown to the greater part of Granada, inaccessible to the police, closed to the census-officers, ignorant of every law and of all government, living one knows not how, how numerous no one knows, foreign to the city, to Spain, and to modern civilization, with a language and statutes and manners of their own—superstitious, false, thieving, beggarly, and fierce.
"Button up your coat and look out for your watch," said Gongora to me, "and let us go forward."
We had not taken a hundred steps when a half-naked boy, black as the walls of his hovel, ran out, gave a cry, and, making a sign to the other boys who followed him, dashed toward us; behind the boys came the women; behind the women the men, and then old men, old women, and more children; and in less time than it takes to tell it we were surrounded by a crowd. My two friends, recognized as Granadines, succeeded in saving themselves; I was left in the lurch. I can still see those horrid faces, still hear those voices, and still feel the pressure of those hands: gesticulating, shouting, saying a thousand things which I did not understand; dragging at my coat, my waistcoat, and my sleeves, they pressed upon me like a pack of famished people, breathed in my face, and cut off my very breath. They were, for the most part, half naked and emaciated—their garments falling in tatters, with unkempt hair, horrible to see; I seemed to be like Don Roderick in the midst of a crowd of the infected in that famous dream of the August night.
"What do these people want?" I asked myself. "Where have I been brought? How shall I get out of this?" I felt almost a sense of fear, and looked around uneasily. Little by little I began to understand.
"I have a sore on my shoulder," said one; "I cannot work; give me a penny."
"I have a broken leg," said another.