I am almost tempted to go down a crumbling staircase, which leads from my kitchen into the Sala de los Embajadores, to indite my epistle from a local conveniente a sa Ecc. I am busy up here with a troop of painters and carpenters putting the part of the Alhambra given up to the Alcaide, and by him to me, into order: no small task, I can assure you, for, what with time, the French, and the barbarous Spaniards, all this enchanted spot is going the way of everything in Spain. To attempt any account of it would be impossible, either by pen or pencil. No previous idea can come up to the exquisite beauty of the Alhambra. Here we are, with the most delicious breezes from the snowy mountain above us, perfumed by a thousand groves and gardens of vine, orange, and pomegranate, carolled by nightingales, who daily and nightly sing in the dark grove to the tune of “Ally Croker,”[14] all by the side of gushing streams and never-failing fountains. Here summer cometh not—not in the way that it appears not to come in Castille; but, while all below in the town and Vega are roasting, broiling, and baking, we neither know it nor feel it.
The journey here was very prosperous. Esposa y sa servidor started alone in the diligence to Cordova. The heat without intense, inside (six inside) infernal. Ecija, another hell, and well deserves to be called La sartenilla [the frying-pan] de Andalucia. We remained at Cordova three days; in the ancient mezquita a wood of pillars, some eight hundred odd, to say nothing of the holy chapel of the Moslems, La Ceca, which is finer and better preserved than anything even here, owing to the purification of Sn. Fernando’s monks, which was simply daubing over with plaster of Paris all the painted arabesque and delicate damascene work of the Moor. A few years ago all this impurification was removed, and the worshippers of Mahomet and the fine arts made happy. Thence to Andujar per diligence. Thence in a coche with nine Miquelites to Granada, by Jaen. The road to Jaen through ploughed fields, uninhabited except by the gang of the Botiga, the José Maria of Jaen; but we neither saw nor heard of him, and duly arrived, well shaken, at the worst inn in Spain. Jaen very striking and picturesque. I was much bored by the commandante, one Downie, who has forgotten English, but came to pay me a visit.
Thence to Granada, through the mountains, the most beautiful road (quoad road) possible, a thing to delight Macadam. The scenery to delight any son of Adam with or without a Mac, full of torrents, rivers, rocks, precipices, goats, vines, figs, lights and shades, etc., but wanting in good accommodation for man or beast. So we went direct the seventeen leagues, seventeen mortal mountain leagues, at a pull, twenty-three hours en coche; think of that, Master Brook![15] The Miquelites, being well supplied with strong cigars of the worst Royal fabrication, ran and sang the whole way.
Arrived here at a most excellent inn, the best I have seen in Spain, and forgot all our woes at
PATIO DE LOS LEONES.
[To face p. 40.
Harriet Ford, 1832.