NOWHERE in Spain are you refreshed with the restful sound of water, sometimes soft, sometimes gay, as in Granada. You hear the flow of the Darro over its stones and rocks, you hear the splash of fountains, the gay hurry of mountain brooks, the soft sound of springs—everywhere flow, or gurgle, or drip. You hear it on the tree-bordered and bowered Alameda in your moonlit walks, and you hear it through the windows of your fonda, or hotel, when you wake. It is everywhere about the Alhambra heights, and the Generalife terraces. The Spaniards call this continuous water-sound, “The Sigh of the Moor.”
Most of the young Spanish women as well as the men, are accomplished guitar-players. The guitar belongs in story to the Señorita, along with her mantilla and her fan. It usually hangs on her casement, brave with ribbons and gay wool tufts and all manner of decorations, and by moonlight she will come out upon the balcony to answer her cavelier’s serenade with a song as sweet as his own. You feel the atmosphere of the Spanish night vibrating all about you, as you stroll along the moonlit street, with the low, soft, delicate twinkle of a hundred guitars, the players half-hidden in the dim patio balconies.
It is often the custom to drive the goats from door to door to be milked, and often an accustomed goat, tinkling its bells, will go along the street, stopping of its own will and knowledge at the doors of its customers, and knocking smartly with its horns should no one appear. The servant of the house comes out into the street and milks the desired quantity, while the “milkman” lounges near by with his cigarette.
Often it is as amusing to watch the dogs of the beggars by the churches as the men themselves. While the noble Caballeros, Don Miguel and Don Pedro, exhausted with the saying of prayers and the much asking of centimos, have fallen asleep in the shade, their respective dogs remain awake to glare at each other with true professional jealousy, and to growl and snap, should a chance stranger drop a coin in one hat and not in the other. The beggar is the last sight, as well as the first, which greets the traveler in Spain.
QUEEN LOUISA AND THE CHILDREN.
BY MARY STUART SMITH.