The Alhambra and the Kremlin: The South and the North of Europe

by Samuel Irenæus Prime

At least a hundred ladies and gentlemen, evidently of the higher class, assembled at the coach office to take leave of some one who was going to Malaga to hold an office under government. It was a genteel and decorous company, and a sight quite peculiar to the country. In America or England, men are often escorted to and from the station, but this was a social, rather than a public ovation, and was a quiet and handsome farewell to a popular man in society.

THE DILIGENCE.

Wherewithal shall I give you an idea of the team that took us out of Malaga that lovely winter evening! Ten mules, the most refractory, ill-mated, and discordant beasts that have served a master since the days of Balaam, were hitched together and to the diligence with rope harness of primitive construction. On one of the leaders rode a postilion: by the side of the midway pairs ran a man whose duty and privilege it was to beat them; and the wheel mules were guided by reins in the hands of the driver on the top of the diligence. The driver thrashed the mules at his feet; the whipper thrashed the three pairs in the middle of the team, and the postilion thrashed the leaders. All thrashing at once as fast and as hard as they could. All shouting at once at the top of their voices, the lumbering vehicle is at last fairly launched and away it goes. The postilion on the forward beasts blows his horn to signal the people in the narrow and crooked streets that the thing is coming. The driver snaps his whip like a revolver, and after the snap brings the lash around the flanks of the lazy brutes: the whipper is now on one side and now on the other; whip, whip, whip all the while; kicking, punching, shouting, the mules spread themselves all abroad, never pulling in concert, but each one on his own hook, and as we got along out of the suburbs and into the broader ways of the country, the rebellious creatures seemed to grow frantic under the ceaseless blows rained upon them by their tormentors, and plunged and kicked till one of them made confusion all confounded by turning a somerset out of his harness and bringing the whole concern to a standstill. It was a short process, putting him in again, and then away they all scampered, more like a drove of cattle than a harnessed team, but the beating was redoubled the more they ran, till I really began to think it was time for these dumb beasts to open their mouths and speak some words of remonstrance. And yet how soon we became so demoralized, as rather to enjoy the excitement and frolic of the ride.

Night was drawing on. We begin to ascend the mountains behind Malaga. The city lies at their feet, all glorious in the golden light of a setting sun. The bay is a lake of loveliness; and the sea, unbounded, stretches off under the southern sky. Orchards of olives, always green, and hills that are vineyards in the season of grapes, and orange-trees, are around us,—evidence of a rich and fertile country. Yet every half mile or so an armed patrol guards the road to make it safe for travellers, and we have two or three on the top of the diligence with their guns loaded to give a welcome to any “gentleman of the road” who might be disposed to make free with unsuspecting travellers. And so, with the excitement of the novel mode of transportation, and listening with ears erect to the tales of robbers with which Antanazio beguiled the mortal hours, we passed a long and wretched night, winding among craggy mountains on the verge of precipices, and crossing deep ravines.

It was three o’clock in the morning when we reached Loja, where we were to stop for refreshments! out of the diligence tumbled a miserable set of people, sleepy but sleepless, cross and hungry, and made a general rush to the hostelry—by courtesy called an inn. Nobody was up, but in the course of ten or fifteen minutes a dirty old man brought in a pot of chocolate and put a plate of cakes in the middle of a table which had been spread with a cloth overnight. I noticed little black spots around on the cloth, and putting my finger at one of them, away hopped a flea, and a flock of them were soon in motion. The chocolate was good, and the fleas were stimulating. In twenty minutes we were caged again, and, with fresh teams and good spirits, set off for Granada.

About six o’clock in the morning we were passing through Santa Fé,—a large town—in the streets of which hundreds of men and women were seen standing, about to march off in gangs to distant fields to work. The inhabitants do not live in scattered houses over the country,—here and there a farmer’s cottage, as with us,—but, dwelling for safety in villages, they must go miles and miles away to and from their fields of daily labor. This Santa Fé has a history. It was built by Ferdinand and Isabella while laying siege to Granada, and here Columbus came and successfully made his plea for their royal favor and help to go out into the ocean in search of a new world. He found it that same year. Granada fell in 1492, and the last of the Moorish strongholds yielded to Spanish power.

As we rode across the wide and fertile plain that lies in front of Granada, the lofty mountains appeared; the east was in shadow, and the west tinged with the rising sunlight. Soon the city on a hill rose on the right, crowned with the Alhambra. One could not fail to be excited as the dreams of childhood and youth were becoming real. An hour more and we were in peaceful possession of Granada, and comfortably lodged within the grounds of the Alhambra.

CHAPTER XII.
THE ALHAMBRA.

WHEN the followers of Berber, the Moorish chieftain, some of whom came from the regions of Damascus and the valley of the Jordan, first entered the plain that lies in front of Granada, they imagined, in the fervor of their Oriental fancies, that they had struck Paradise itself. Perhaps they had come back to Damascus, the blessed and glorious city of the East, but that and Paradise to them were about the same thing. The wide and fertile plain was and is watered by two streams like those that flowed round about the Eden of sacred story, and if the earthly gardens of man’s delight were to be an emblem and foretaste of the flowers and fruits, the beauty and plenty of the gardens of the skies, they were certainly now before their eyes. They gave the name of “Damascus of the West” to the city that crowned the hill, and shone in the summer sun like the great dome to the temple of the King of kings. This city was called Granada, from the granates, or pomegranates, that then as now grew in abundance, with luscious grapes, figs and citrons and olives, and all the fruits of a southern and delicious clime. Near by, the snow-clad Sierra Nevada reminded them of their own Mount Hermon, and over all these was hung a canopy of blue, so deep and pure and clear that the sea, reversed and lightened by the sun by day, and set with stars at night, could not have been more lovely to behold.