They
still, according to her account, may be seen occasionally when the
moon is in the full, riding in lonely places along the mountain
side, on palfreys richly caparisoned and sparkling with jewels, but
they vanish on being spoken to.
But before I relate any thing further respecting these princesses,
the reader may be anxious to know something about the fair
inhabitant of the tower with her head dressed with flowers, who looked
out from the lofty window. She proved to be the newly-married spouse
of the worthy adjutant of invalids; who, though well stricken in
years, had had the courage to take to his bosom a young and buxom
Andalusian damsel. May the good old cavalier be happy in his choice,
and find the Tower of the Princesses a more secure residence for
female beauty than it seems to have proved in the time of the Moslems,
if we may believe the following legend!
Legend of the Three Beautiful Princesses.
IN OLD times there reigned a Moorish king in Granada, whose name was
Mohamed, to which his subjects added the appellation of El Hayzari, or
"The Left-handed." Some say he was so called on account of his being
really more expert with his sinister than his dexter hand; others,
because he was prone to take every thing by the wrong end; or in other
words, to mar wherever he meddled. Certain it is, either through
misfortune or mismanagement, he was continually in trouble: thrice was
he driven from his throne, and, on one occasion, barely escaped to
Africa with his life, in the disguise of a fisherman.
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