What they found
nobody knows; they became suddenly rich, but kept their own secret.
Thus the old man had once been next door to fortune, but was doomed
never to get under the same roof.
I have remarked that the stories of treasure buried by the Moors, so
popular throughout Spain, are most current among the poorest people.
Kind nature consoles with shadows for the lack of substantials. The
thirsty man dreams of fountains and running streams, the hungry man of
banquets, and the poor man of heaps of hidden gold: nothing
certainly is more opulent than the imagination of a beggar.
Our afternoon's ride took us through a steep and rugged defile of
the mountains, called Puerto del Rey, the Pass of the King; being
one of the great passes into the territories of Granada, and the one
by which King Ferdinand conducted his army. Towards sunset the road,
winding round a hill, brought us in sight of the famous little
frontier city of Loxa, which repulsed Ferdinand from its walls. Its
Arabic name implies "guardian," and such it was to the vega of
Granada, being one of its advanced guards. It was the strong-hold of
that fiery veteran, old Ali Atar, father-in-law of Boabdil; and here
it was that the latter collected his troops, and sallied forth on that
disastrous foray which ended in the death of the old alcayde and his
own captivity. From its commanding position at the gate, as it were,
of this mountain pass, Loxa has not unaptly been termed the key of
Granada.
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