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, senor; 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 gipsies who live in caves in the hillsides, just
out of the fortress, are many of them fit for any thing; 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.
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