The Alhambra 33

The Alhambra 33

“No, Señor, God be thanked! but my grandfather, the tailor, knew several

persons that had seen it, for it went about much oftener in his time

than at present; sometimes in one shape, sometimes in another. Everybody

in Granada has heard of the Belludo, for the old women and the nurses

frighten the children with it when they cry. Some say it is the spirit

of a cruel Moorish king, who killed his six sons and buried them in

these vaults, and that they hunt him at nights in revenge.”

 

I forbear to dwell upon the marvellous details given by the

simple-minded Mateo about this redoubtable phantom, which has, in fact,

been time out of mind a favorite theme of nursery tales and popular

tradition in Granada, and of which honorable mention is made by an

ancient and learned historian and topographer of the place.

 

Leaving this eventful pile, we continued our course, skirting the

fruitful orchards of the Generalife, in which two or three nightingales

were pouring forth a rich strain of melody. Behind these orchards we

passed a number of Moorish tanks, with a door cut into the rocky bosom

of the hill, but closed up. These tanks, Mateo informed me, were

favorite bathing-places of himself and his comrades in boyhood, until

frightened away by a story of a hideous Moor, who used to issue forth

from the door in the rock to entrap unwary bathers.

 

Leaving these haunted tanks behind us, we pursued our ramble up a

solitary mule-path winding among the hills, and soon found ourselves

amidst wild and melancholy mountains, destitute of trees, and here and

there tinted with scanty verdure. Everything within sight was severe and

sterile, and it was scarcely possible to realize the idea that but a

short distance behind us was the Generalife, with its blooming orchards

and terraced gardens, and that we were in the vicinity of delicious

Granada, that city of groves and fountains. But such is the nature of

Spain; wild and stern the moment it escapes from cultivation; the desert

and the garden are ever side by side.

 

The narrow defile up which we were passing is called, according to

Mateo, _el Barranco de la tinaja_, or the ravine of the jar, because a

jar full of Moorish gold was found here in old times. The brain of poor

Mateo was continually running upon these golden legends.

 

“But what is the meaning of the cross I see yonder upon a heap of

stones, in that narrow part of the ravine?”

 

“Oh, that’s nothing--a muleteer was murdered there some years since.”

 

“So then, Mateo, you have robbers and murderers even at the gates of the

Alhambra?”

 

“Not at present, Señor; that was formerly, when there used to be many

loose fellows about the fortress; but they’ve all been weeded out. Not

but that the gypsies who live in caves in the hill-sides, just out of

the fortress, are many of them fit for anything; but we have had no

murder about here for a long time past. The man who murdered the

muleteer was hanged in the fortress.”

 

Our path continued up the barranco, with a bold, rugged height to our

left, called the “Silla del Moro,” or Chair of the Moor, from the

tradition already alluded to, that the unfortunate Boabdil fled thither

during a popular insurrection, and remained all day seated on the rocky

summit, looking mournfully down on his factious city.

 

We at length arrived on the highest part of the promontory above

Granada, called the mountain of the sun. The evening was approaching;

the setting sun just gilded the loftiest heights. Here and there a

solitary shepherd might be descried driving his flock down the

declivities, to be folded for the night; or a muleteer and his lagging

animals, threading some mountain path to arrive at the city gates before

nightfall.

 

Presently the deep tones of the Cathedral bell came swelling up the

defiles, proclaiming the hour of “oration” or prayer. The note was

responded to from the belfry of every church, and from the sweet bells

of the convents among the mountains. The shepherd paused on the fold of

the hill, the muleteer in the midst of the road; each took off his hat

and remained motionless for a time, murmuring his evening prayer. There

is always something pleasingly solemn in this custom, by which, at a

melodious signal, every human being throughout the land unites at the

same moment in a tribute of thanks to God for the mercies of the day. It

spreads a transient sanctity over the land, and the sight of the sun

sinking in all his glory adds not a little to the solemnity of the

scene.

 

In the present instance the effect was heightened by the wild and lonely

nature of the place. We were on the naked and broken summit of the

haunted mountain of the sun, where ruined tanks and cisterns, and the

mouldering foundations of extensive buildings, spoke of former

populousness, but where all was now silent and desolate.

 

As we were wandering about among these traces of old times, we came to a

circular pit, penetrating deep into the bosom of the mountain; which

Mateo pointed out as one of the wonders and mysteries of the place. I

supposed it to be a well dug by the indefatigable Moors, to obtain their

favorite element in its greatest purity. Mateo, however, had a different

story, and one much more to his humor. According to a tradition, in

which his father and grandfather firmly believed, this was an entrance

to the subterranean caverns of the mountain, in which Boabdil and his

court lay bound in magic spell, and whence they sallied forth at night,

at allotted times, to revisit their ancient abodes.

 

“Ah, Señor, this mountain is full of wonders of the kind. In another

place there was a hole somewhat like this, and just within it hung an

iron pot by a chain; nobody knew what was in that pot, for it was always

covered up; but everybody supposed it full of Moorish gold. Many tried

to draw it forth, for it seemed just within reach; but the moment it was

touched it would sink far, far down, and not come up again for some

time. At last one who thought it must be enchanted touched it with the

cross, by way of breaking the charm; and faith he did break it, for the

pot sank out of sight and never was seen any more.

 

“All this is fact, Señor; for my grandfather was an eye-witness.”

 

“What! Mateo; did he see the pot?”

 

“No, Señor, but he saw the hole where the pot had hung.”

 

“It’s the same thing, Mateo.”

 

The deepening twilight, which in this climate is of short duration,

admonished us to leave this haunted ground. As we descended the mountain

defile, there was no longer herdsman nor muleteer to be seen, nor

anything to be heard but our own footsteps and the lonely chirping of

the cricket. The shadows of the valley grew deeper and deeper, until all

was dark around us. The lofty summit of the Sierra Nevada alone

retained a lingering gleam of daylight; its snowy peaks glaring against

the dark blue firmament, and seeming close to us, from the extreme

purity of the atmosphere.

 

“How near the Sierra looks this evening!” said Mateo; “it seems as if

you could touch it with your hand; and yet it is many long leagues off.”

While he was speaking, a star appeared over the snowy summit of the

mountain, the only one yet visible in the heavens, and so pure, so

large, so bright and beautiful, as to call forth ejaculations of delight

from honest Mateo.

 

“Que estrella hermosa! que clara y limpia es!--No pueda ser estrella mas

brillante!”

 

(What a beautiful star! how clear and lucid!--a star could not be more

brilliant!)

 

I have often remarked this sensibility of the common people of Spain to

the charms of natural objects. The lustre of a star, the beauty or

fragrance of a flower, the crystal purity of a fountain, will inspire

them with a kind of poetical delight; and then, what euphonious words

their magnificent language affords, with which to give utterance to

their transports!

 

“But what lights are those, Mateo, which I see twinkling along the

Sierra Nevada, just below the snowy region, and which might be taken for

stars, only that they are ruddy, and against the dark side of the

mountain?”

 

“Those, Señor, are fires, made by the men who gather snow and ice for

the supply of Granada. They go up every afternoon with mules and asses,

and take turns, some to rest and warm themselves by the fires, while

others fill the panniers with ice. They then set off down the mountains,

so as to reach the gates of Granada before sunrise. That Sierra Nevada,

Señor, is a lump of ice in the middle of Andalusia, to keep it all cool

in summer.”

 

It was now completely dark; we were passing through the barranco, where

stood the cross of the murdered muleteer, when I beheld a number of

lights moving at a distance, and apparently advancing up the ravine. On

nearer approach they proved to be torches borne by a train of uncouth

figures arrayed in black: it would have been a procession dreary enough

at any time, but was peculiarly so in this wild and solitary place.

 

Mateo drew near, and told me, in a low voice, that it was a funeral

train bearing a corpse to the burying-ground among the hills.

 

As the procession passed by, the lugubrious light of the torches,

falling on the rugged features and funeral-weeds of the attendants, had

the most fantastic effect, but was perfectly ghastly, as it revealed the

countenance of the corpse, which, according to the Spanish custom, was

borne uncovered on an open bier. I remained for some time gazing after

the dreary train as it wound up the dark defile of the mountain. It put

me in mind of the old story of a procession of demons bearing the body

of a sinner up the crater of Stromboli.

 

“Ah! Señor,” cried Mateo, “I could tell you a story of a procession once

seen among these mountains, but then you’d laugh at me, and say it was

one of the legacies of my grandfather the tailor.”

 

“By no means, Mateo. There is nothing I relish more than a marvellous

tale.”

 

“Well, Señor, it is about one of those very men we have been talking of,

who gather snow on the Sierra Nevada.

 

“You must know, that a great many years since, in my grandfather’s time,

there was an old fellow, Tio Nicolo [Uncle Nicholas] by name, who had

filled the panniers of his mule with snow and ice, and was returning

down the mountain. Being very drowsy, he mounted upon the mule, and soon

falling asleep, went with his head nodding and bobbing about from side