prosperity; so that the abodes of thirty thousand people now straggle over a space which once held a million. The vacant spots thus left are either encumbered with ruins or are laid out as gardens, in which the fruits and flowers of the tropics flourish, unprotected, in the open air, intermingled with the productions of more temperate climes. The peach, the pear, and the apple, the orange, the fig, and the banana come to perfection side by side. But the palms are the special glory of Cordova. In the Alamedas and

gardens the dwarf variety flourishes most luxuriantly, springing from an undergrowth of semi-tropical plants. Others rise high above the walls and housetops of the city, and are among the first objects which the traveller sees as he approaches it.

It is said that all the palms in Spain descend from one planted by

Abd-ur-rahman in his favourite garden on the banks of the Guadalquivir. He composed a poem in praise of it, of which the following is a translation:

"Beautiful palm-tree! like me thou art a stranger in the land;

But thy roots find a friendly and a fertile soil,

Thy head rises into a genial atmosphere;

The balmy west breathes kindly amongst thy branches.

Thou hast nothing to fear from evil fortune;

But I am ever exposed to its treachery!

When cruel fate and the fury of Abbas drove me from my dear country,

My tears often watered the palm-trees which grew upon the banks of the Euphrates.
Neither the trees nor the river have preserved the memory of my sorrow.

And thou too, beautiful palm! hast also forgotten thy country.

But I remember with a ceaseless and unavailing regret."

One of the hotels in Cordova deserves passing mention, on account of the ingeniously bad English in which it invites the custom of tourists. The following is a copy verbatim et literatim of this curious document:

RIZZI HOTEL Situated in the Nmost centrick place of Cordova. This splendid and distinguished establishment contains spacious and elegant rooms with independant lodging house for families who wish live in. The foods are served into and out of establishment besides of the table d'hote with wines of all countries after the bill of fare. Ynterpre ters who speak English france germany Ytalian. Yt also has ackney coach and hole of post office. Spring season hotel Belongs to Rizzi Hotel. Yt is the most picture sque region of the Sierra Morena brow. The water and clime of the land are very beautiful!!!

From Cordova to Granada the journey is made by railway as far as Archidona, a distance of about eighty miles. Here a gap in the communication occurs, and a diligence ride of four hours brings the traveller to Loja. This part of the journey is very picturesque. The grandeur of the scenery affords ample compensation for the execrable condition of the road, over which the diligence jolts and pitches to an alarming extent. Wild, savage sierras, intersected by almost inaccessible ravines, groves of olives, forests of cork wood, and rich fertile valleys where winter is unknown, and which produce two or three harvests in the year, succeed one another. Soon the Sierra Nevada comes into view, and adds that element of beauty to the scene which only snowy peaks can give.

In the final conflicts between the Spaniards and the Moors this was the border land, the possession of every inch of which was fiercely and repeatedly contested. The readers of Washington Irving's Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada, or of Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, will recognise the name

of every town and hamlet, every mountain height and savage gorge he passes, and will connect each with some deed of desperate daring. Loja, which was the key of the kingdom of Granada, played a most important part in the final struggie. It is intrenched amongst rugged hills, surrounded by deep ravines, was strongly fortified, and was defended by a powerful garrison under the command of Ali Atar, one of the boldest and ablest of the Moorish generals. Again and again the armies of Ferdinand and Isabella attacked it in vain. The bravest troops and the most skilful dispositions were powerless against a fortress so strongly situated and so bravely defended. It was only taken at last after a siege of thirty-four days, in which the Conde de Escalas, as the Spaniards called Lord Scales, and a strong body of English archers rendered important services.

At Loja we enter upon the rich and beautiful vega of Granada. Rejoicing in perpetual sunshine, watered abundantly by innumerable streams, and replenished through the summer by the snows of the Sierra Nevada, it is a region of almost incredible fertility.

Its

"The Moorish territory of Granada contained," says Mr. Prescott, in his History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, “within a circuit of about one hundred and eighty leagues, all the physical resources of a great empire. Its broad valleys were intersected by mountains rich in mineral wealth, whose hardy population supplied the state with husbandmen and soldiers. pastures were fed by abundant fountains, and its coasts studded with commodious ports, the principal marts in the Mediterranean. In the midst, and crowning the whole as with a diadem, rose the beautiful city of Granada. In the days of the Moors it was encompassed by a wall, flanked by a thousand and thirty towers, with seven portals. Its population, according to a contemporary, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, amounted to two hundred thousand souls; and various authors agree in attesting, that, at a later period, it could send forth fifty thousand warriors from its gates. This statement will not appear exaggerated, if we consider that the native population of the city was greatly swelled by the influx of the ancient inhabitants of the districts lately conquered by the Spaniards. On the summit of one of the hills of the city was erected the royal fortress or palace of the Alhambra, which was capable of containing within its circuit forty thousand men. The light and elegant architecture of this edifice, whose magnificent ruins still form the most interesting monument in Spain, for the contemplation of the traveller, shows the great advancement of the art since the construction of the celebrated mosque of Cordova. Its graceful porticos and colonnades, its domes and ceilings glowing with tints which in that transparent atmosphere have lost nothing of their original brilliancy, its airy halls, so constructed as to admit the perfume of surrounding gardens and agreeable ventilation of the air, and its fountains, which still shed their coolness over its deserted