It is a lovely valley she traverses on her way from Cordoba to Granada, now followed by the rail. Here is Montilla, famous for its white wines; old towers and castles succeed each other on the hills, and the sunny slopes are lined by vineyards and pomegranate woods. Olive-trees, big as ancestral oaks, make avenues as far as the eye can reach, and the damp wind sounds like music among the reeds at the Puerte del Xenil. At the town of Bobadilla, now a station, the huge mountains of Granada shut in all the plain, impregnable barriers between the Christian and the Moor.
The queen travels mounted on a mule, seated on a golden saddle—a rich kirtle of velvet with hanging sleeves forms her robe, cut square on the neck, and a long mantle and a black hat complete her attire.
As she advances through the defile, the Rock of the Lovers (Pina de los Enamorados) opens to the sight, so called because a Christian knight, who loved a Moorish maid, flung himself from the summit to die with her in his arms.
Higher up in the mountains the queen is met by a splendid train of knights, headed by the elegant Ponce de Leon, courtly as he is brave—indeed, from his actions in this war he has been named the second Cid—and Lord Rivers, the English volunteer, mounted a la guisa (meaning with long stirrups), wearing over his armour a velvet cloak and a French hat and feather, attended by pages in silk, and foot soldiers.
The earl, as eccentric as he is brave, bare-headed makes a reverence to the queen, which she returns, at the same time graciously condescending to compliment him on his valour in the siege of Loja, further condoling with him on the loss of his two front teeth, knocked out by the hilt of a Moorish scimitar.
“But Earl Rivers might,” continues Isabel, in her soft voice, bending on him the calm lustre of her blue eyes, recorded as such a beauty in her faultless face, “have lost the teeth by natural decay, whereas now their lack will be esteemed a glory rather than a shame.”
To which the earl, bowing to his saddle-bow, replies that he returns thanks to God for the honour her Highness has done him in allowing him to meet her; that he is contented, nay, even happy
