“May Heaven’s blessings rest upon these castle halls
As long as pilgrims wend their way to Mecca’s walls!”
Nay, as long as clouds sail the skies, and seekers after beauty rove on earth!
This is the mood one is in when climbing further up the mountain to the Moorish summer palace, the Generalife.
We are met, as it were, and shown the way by a double row of slim black-green cypress—dark trees of silence.
The Generalife is enthroned far up on the heights, and embedded in terrace-shaped gardens.
The gardens! In them nature has enfolded all her abounding wealth of colour. Crimson-ramblers, wistarias, vines and ivy smother the walls. Mangolias, oleanders, almond trees, laurels, cypresses, araucarias, olive trees, agaves, palms and mimosa vie with one another for precedence. Flaming pomegranate blossoms, blood-red roses, violet mallows, blue fleurs-de-lis, white jasmine, yellow narcissi, and golden oranges in dark green foliage are a riot of colour. Ball shaped myrtles surround the little fountain, listening to the babbling of its silver waters, and in the twigs the song of birds greeting nature in her holiday garments.
Wondrous peace broods o’er this land. Through trees and halls and wall arches there is a magnificent view of the Alhambra and the multi-coloured houses of the town at its feet, and further on to the picturesque Albaicin, and over cactus-grown Sacromonte with its gypsy cave-dwellings, and still further to the snow-capped Sierra Nevada. Another glance shows the fertile plains of the Vega through which the clear waters of the Genil flow.
However full of radiant happiness the day may have been, it is outshone by the sinking sun casting a golden halo over the country-side. The walls of the Alhambra, once so fiercely fought for, stand forth as though dipped in blood. The distant mountains glitter golden-bronze, and the snowy sides of the Sierra Nevada scintillate in flames. Slowly the fair fires die down, and a chill spectral white falls upon the snow summits. The eventide is there and with it the stars.
The Spaniards have coined a proud sentence: “Quien no ha visto Granada, no ha visto nada!” He who has not seen Granada has seen nought! And I should like to add: He who has seen Granada and the Alhambra on sunny spring days, bears with him a talisman to ward off sorrows in dull days, and can never be completely unhappy again in life.
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