C. Rochfort? Scott

CHOICE OF ROUTES BETWEEN MALAGA AND GRANADA—ROAD TO VELEZ MALAGA—OBSERVATIONS ON THAT TOWN—CONTINUATION OF JOURNEY TO GRANADA—FERTILE VALLEY OF THE RIVER VELEZ—VENTA OF ALCAUCIN—ZAFARAYA MOUNTAINS—ALHAMA—DESCRIPTION OF THAT PLACE AND OF ITS THERMAL BATHS—CACIN—VENTA OF HUELMA—SALT-PANS OF LA MALA—FIRST VIEW OF GRANADA AND ITS VEGA—SITUATION OF THE CITY—ITS SALUBRITY—ANCIENT NAMES—BECOMES THE CAPITAL OF THE LAST MOSLEM KINGDOM OF SPAIN—FINE APPROACH TO THE MODERN CITY—IT IS THE MOST PURELY MOORISH TOWN IN SPAIN—CAUSE OF THE DECADENCE OF THE ARTS UNDER THE MOORS OF GRANADA, AND OF THE EASY CONQUEST OF THE CITY—DESTRUCTION OF THE MOORISH LITERATURE ON THE CAPTURE OF THE CITY BY THE SPANIARDS.

SEVERAL roads present themselves between Malaga and Granada, each (as the Dover-packet skippers of the olden time were wont to say of their vessels) possessing a peculiar claim to the traveller’s preference.

One is good, but very long; another is short, but very bad; a third is both circuitous and bad, but across a most interesting and picturesque country. We made choice of this last, which proceeds by way of Velez, Malaga, and Alhama.

Of the other two above-mentioned, the first is an excellent carriage road, that is directed in the first instance upon Loxa, and will be travelled over hereafter; the second (a mere mountain track) leaves the coast at once, and proceeds straight to Alhama.

The distance from Malaga to Velez, although reckoned six leagues of Spain, is only about eighteen English miles. For the greater part of the way, the road is conducted along the Mediterranean shore; sometimes ascending and crossing the low, rocky promontories by which the coast is indented, but seldom stretching inland more than a quarter of a mile. It is tolerably well kept, and is at all seasons passable for carriages.

The coast is rugged, and thickly set with towers and casa fuertes,[129] but is marked by no picturesque features until arrived within a short distance of Velez, when the road, turning away from the sea-shore, enters a flat and verdant valley, wherein stands the old town, shrouded in groves of orange and lemon trees, and backed by hills, clad to their summits with vines. A fine stream, bearing the same name as the town, serpentines through the valley, fertilizing it by a deposit of rich soil, swept from the sides of the Sierras of Loxa and Alhama. A kind of delta has thus been formed at the river’s mouth, stretching some way into the sea; so that Velez, which probably, in former days, stood upon or near the coast, is now upwards of three miles from it.

The town is slightly elevated above and on the left bank of the stream, and is commanded by the neighbouring hills. The streets are wide, clean, and well paved; but the thriving commerce, and abundant market, naturally looked for in a place once so noted for the productiveness of its orchards and extent of its export trade, are no longer to be seen; and the number of inhabitants has either decreased very rapidly, or has been greatly exaggerated of late years, when stated to amount to twelve thousand souls.

There can be little doubt but that Velez is the town of Menoba, mentioned both by Pliny and in the Itinerary of Antonius, though there is a slight discrepancy in the two accounts; for, whilst both place Menoba to the eastward of Malaca, the latter states the distance between the two places to be only twelve Roman miles, and the former says it is on a river. Now, there is no stream that can be called a “river” between the two towns, excepting that of Velez itself, and it is full eighteen Roman miles from Malaga.

In the days of the Moslems, Velez was a place of considerable strength, as well as commercial importance, and only fell into the hands of the Spaniards in the spring of the same year that the “catholic kings” possessed themselves of Malaga, A.D., 1487.

The investment of the fortress was attended with much risk to the army of Ferdinand, which at one period of the siege was cut off from its communications with the interior. The king himself also—for he personally directed the operations against the beleaguered city—incurred great danger in repulsing an attempt made by the Moors to relieve the place; his life having been saved only by the devotedness of his attendants. The armorial bearings of the town commemorate this event.

We had been informed that the only thing for which Velez Malaga is at the present day celebrated, is its breed of fleas; and certainly we could not in this instance say, “nunquam ad liquidum fama perducitur;” for never in my life—and one retains a lively recollection of these matters—did I see a more active, nor feed a more insatiable race than that which is perpetuated in the floors, walls, and bedding, of the Venta Nueva. The camphor bags, with which, at the recommendation of our Malaga friends, we had come provided, were thrown away as useless.

Nothing loth, we started for Alhama with the earliest day. The road ascends very gradually along a fine, open, and highly cultivated valley, all the way to the venta of Vinuela, distant about eight miles from Velez. For the first few miles the road is good, but afterwards it is so cut across by water channels as to offer serious impediments to quick travelling; for these aqueducts are formed by high banks, composed of mud and fascines, which, though bridged across and kept in good repair during the winter season, when the mountain torrents come down with great force, yet in summer are suffered to get out of order, and must, therefore, be scrambled over as the traveller best can.

The valley is admirably irrigated, however, from other sources, and the crops it produces are remarkably fine and very various. They consist of fruits and vegetables of all sorts, maize, corn, and sugar-canes. On the right hand, but at some distance, rises the lofty Sierra de Tejeda; on the left are visible the rugged peaks of the mountains of Antequera; whilst in front, the road continues to be directed towards the elevated passes of Zafaraya, which serrate the great mountain-chain of Alhama.

About four miles beyond the venta of Vinuela—that is, twelve miles from Velez, and half way between it and Alhama—is the venta of Alcaucin.[130] Beyond this the ascent becomes much steeper, and the road, reaching the summit of the mountain range, enters a narrow and difficult pass, that soon shuts out the view of the sea. In exchange, however, it opens to the north, into a lovely and singularly secluded valley, which is walled in on all sides by barren and rugged tors, and carpeted with the richest vegetation; and, proceeding a short distance onwards, we were yet further gratified by obtaining an imposing view of the famed Sierra Nevada.

The road from hence is tolerably good nearly all the way to Alhama, which is not seen until one arrives immediately over it. The descent is abrupt and bad.

Alhama stands on the brink of a stupendous tajo, or fissure, through which the river Marchan forces its way towards the great plain of Granada. Encompassed on all sides by wild, impracticable sierras, it commands the only tolerable road that, for the distance of nearly forty miles, presents itself to traverse the lofty mountain spine, which stretches east and west, along the Mediterranean shore; that is to say, the portion of this chain which extends between the pass of Alfarnate—where the great road from Malaga to Loja crosses it; and the sources of the river Durcal—round which winds the road from AlmuÑecar to Granada.

From this circumstance, the Moors ever regarded this mountain fortress as a place of first-rate importance, calling it, indeed, the key of Granada; and it was not without reason they did so, since the fall, first of Malaga, and then of their beloved city itself, was mainly attributable to the capture of this place, by Don Rodrigo Ponce de Leon, who took it by surprise, A.D., 1481.

Even in the present day, it is a formidable port; but artillery has now been brought to such perfection, and is made to traverse such difficult country, that its defenders would soon be buried beneath its ruins.

Alhama seems to occupy the site of the Roman town of Artigi, mentioned by Pliny as one of the cities lying inland between the upper GuadalquivÍr and the Mediterranean Sea. But no vestiges of walls of greater antiquity than the time of the Moors are any where visible. Its present name is evidently derived from the Arabic, Al Hamman (the Bath).

Besides the fame enjoyed by Alhama, from its bygone strength and strategical importance—its numerous sieges and obstinate defences—the place is in high repute from the curative properties of its thermal springs; and it derives yet further celebrity from the various laurel wreaths twined round it by the poets and romancers of all ages. The translation of one of its plaintive legends has not been thought unworthy even of the pen of Byron.[131]

Divest Alhama, however, of its historical recollections, of its hot water, its poetry, and romance, and it is one of the dullest, dirtiest, and most sultry towns of southern Spain. The streets are narrow, houses poor, and churches and convents dilapidated.

It is supplied with water by means of an aqueduct, and the stream is sufficiently abundant to keep it clean and sweet, but for some filthy dyers; who first turn it to their own purpose, and then into the public streets. Although so little ground in the vicinity of Alhama is susceptible of cultivation, and the place contains but a few inconsiderable manufactories of woollen clothes, yet the population is said to amount to 10,000 souls. I have great doubts, however, whether it would not be over-rated at half that number.

In the bottom of the fissure—which is 600 feet below the town—are numerous picturesque water-mills; and, viewed from thence, Alhama furnishes an excellent subject for the painter: The situation of the crumbling old fortress is romantic; the sides of the hills rising behind it are clad with vines, and their summits clothed with forest trees; whilst beyond are seen the distant peaks of the Zafaraya passes.

The hot springs are about a mile from the town, on the left of the road leading to Granada. The source which supplies the baths is very copious, and its heat is about 110° of Fahrenheit. The water contains various salts and a considerable quantity of sulphur, smells rather offensively, and certainly does not taste like chicken-broth, as some people maintain that of Wiesbaden does; though, for my own part, I confess I never could discover any chicken flavour in the scalding liquid of the fashionable koch brunnen, unless it was of the eggs, from which, after three weeks’ incubation, the chickens had not been released.

The mineral water of Alhama has been found very efficacious in obstinate cases of rheumatism, dyspepsia, and hypochondriasis, and is considered infallible in the cure of gun-shot wounds. Its virtues were doubtless known to the Romans; indeed, one of the baths is said (and appears) to be, the work of that people. But the vaulted building which now encloses the principal source is evidently of Moorish workmanship. The reservoir, or bath, that first receives the beneficent stream, is built at the foot of a scarped rock, from a narrow crevice in the face of which the streaming water gushes, whilst the base of the same rock is washed by the icy-cold current of the Marchan.

After visiting the baths, we returned to Alhama to pass the night—to sleep I cannot say, since not an eye could any one of the party close, during the half dozen tedious hours that, stretched on our cloaks, (having very soon been driven from the wool-stuffed mattresses afforded by the house) we lay alternately invoking Morpheus and Phoebus, and exclaiming, “Woe is me, Alhama!”

We left the wretched venta as soon as the light was sufficient to enable us to follow the winding road down the steep side of the mountain, and, reaching once more the bed of the Marchan, crossed to its right bank, and took the road to Granada, by way of La Mala.

In about two hours we passed within gunshot of the village of Cacin, leaving it on our left; and then, fording a stream of the same name which runs towards the village, proceeded, by a villanously stony road, over a very broken, but not mountainous country, to the solitary venta of Huelma, which, though distant only about fifteen miles from Alhama, took us four hours and a half to reach.

We were glad, and at the same time surprised, to find that the house, miserable as its exterior bespoke it, could furnish materials for a human breakfast, as well as a feed of barley for our famished horses; an invigorator which the mozo of the posada at Alhama had certainly forgotten to give the poor animals at cock-crow, according to his plighted word.

From the venta of Huelma to La Mala is six miles of very bad road, and very uninteresting country. La Mala contains a royal salt manufactory, and appears to be a thriving village. The water from which the salt is extracted is pumped up from wells sunk in all directions round the place, and is conducted by pipes and channels into extensive pans, where, exposed to the action of the sun and air, the process of evaporation is soon completed.

All the hills in the vicinity contain so much salt, that even the little stream which runs through the village, and supplies its inhabitants with this necessary of life, is strongly impregnated with it, and it is difficult to procure drinkable water any where in the neighbourhood.

About two miles beyond La Mala (the road having reached the summit of a hill of some height), the far-famed city, and its glorious vega—which we had all the morning been looking for on gaining each succeeding eminence—at length burst upon our impatient sight. It is a magnificent view; though the city is at too great a distance (full seven miles) to be a striking object in a prospect of such vast extent; and the unvarying olive-green tint of the plain, and the total want of (perceptible) water, give a sameness to the scene that somewhat disappointed us. The mountains, too, that rise to the northward of the Genil, dividing that river from the Guadalquiver, appeared tamely outlined, after those we had so lately traversed.

On a nearer approach, however, Granada has an imposing appearance. Its elevated citadels, hanging gardens, and wooded hills, form a fine background to the shining city; and the splendid Sierra Nevada, which is now again seen on the right, makes the picture almost perfect.

The descent is very gradual towards Gavia el Grande, which stands on the edge of the plain—the road from thence to Granada being on a perfect level. The luxuriance of the vegetation exceeds any thing I ever beheld. The wheat, though not yet ready for the sickle, was upwards of seven feet high, and the crops of flax, clover, &c. were gigantic in proportion.

The whole plain, as we rode along, appeared to be one vast cultivated field; and the want of water we had complained of, in looking down upon the vega, was readily accounted for on observing the innumerable irrigating channels into which the Genil and its various affluents are directed, and in the distribution of which, the most rigid frugality is perceptible. The plain is all watered “by the foot,” as practised in the East.

The city of Granada is situated at the eastern extremity of the celebrated vega, where the golden Darro and the crystal Genil—long pent in amongst the tortuous ravines of the Sierra Nevada—first pour their fertilizing streams of melted snow upon the verdant plain.

The greater part of the city stands within the fork of the two rivers, sheltered to the southward and eastward by the Cerro de Santa Elena—a rugged hill, crowned by the lofty towers of the Alhambra—and connected by several bridges with the other portion of the city, which extends along the right bank of the Darro. This quarter, or Barrio, still retains its ancient Moorish appellation, Albaycin, and is screened to the north by a steep ridge, once crowned by another formidable castle, but of which the ruined foundations alone remain to attest its strength and magnitude.

Granada, whilst thus sheltered on three sides from the piercing blasts that in winter sweep over the snowy summits of the Sierra Nevada, is yet sufficiently elevated to command an extensive view over the fertile vega, stretching far away to the west, and to receive the refreshing breezes wafted from its perfumed orange groves. The climate, consequently, is at all seasons delightful, and the shade of its ever-verdant groves, and freshness of its inexhaustible springs, might well be regretted by the sensual Moslems, driven from it to seek a shelter on the parched shores of Africa.

The coins, monuments, inscriptions, and statues which have been discovered here, leave no doubt that the Roman city of Illiberris stood upon or near the site of the present city; though some antiquaries have imagined they discovered in the name of the Sierra Elvira that of the ancient city.

The word Elvira, however, is merely a corruption of the Arabic words Al Beyrah—the unprofitable—which is quite the character of the droughty arid mountain in question; and as not a vestige of a town is to be met with in its vicinity, it may fairly be concluded that so unlikely a site was never selected for one.

Pliny calls the city “Iliberi, which is also Liberini;” the latter name being apparently formed from that which it bore previously to the arrival of the Romans in the country, namely, Liberia, a city founded, according to the Spanish chronologists, 2000 years before the Christian era. By the Goths the name was changed to Eliberi, as proved by numerous coins of that people, yet extant. The last of these bears the date A.D., 636, from which it may be inferred that the place had fallen to decay prior to the irruption of the Saracens; particularly as little notice is taken of it in the early annals of the Moors of Spain, under its new name of Granada.

Florez conjectures—and I think not unreasonably—that the name Granada may be derived from the Arabic words Garb, west; and nata, the name of a mountain overlooking the city of Damascus, from whence came the band of Arabs that conquered Eliberi. Thus, we may suppose, that on first discovering it from the Sierra of Alhama, they designated it, from a resemblance to the bright city and its splendid vale in their native land, the western Nata.

The surpassing beauty of the wooded eminences overhanging the Darro and Genil, not less than the delightful temperature and excessive fertility of the outstretched vega, could not fail to have soon induced many of such earthly paradise-seekers as the Mohammedans to settle there; and doubtless, Granada, at an early date after the Saracenic conquest, again became a large and populous city; though not until the power of the crescent was on the wane; in fact, not until Cordoba and Valencia had fallen to the Christians, and Seville was threatened with destruction, did she assume a proud pre-eminence, by becoming the capital of the diminished, though scarcely weakened, dominions of Mohammedan Spain.

The first great augmentation the city had received was occasioned by the capture of the towns of Alhambra and Baeza, by Ferdinand III, (A.D. 1224) the inhabitants of which, driven to the southern side of the GuadalquivÍr, sought shelter behind the rugged mountains of Jaen, establishing themselves at Granada. The exiles of the former town there built a fortress, overhanging the left bank of the Darro, to which they gave the name of their regretted home; whilst those of the latter erected an equally formidable citadel on the opposite side of the river, which was called after them Al Bayzin, and eventually gave its name to the large and populous district of the city that, in the course of a few years, was clustered round its base.

The city, thus strengthened and augmented, was shortly afterwards (A.D. 1236) selected as the capital of a new kingdom, founded by Mohammed Abou Said, or, as from the name of his family he is generally called, Mohammed Alhamar;[132] and the throne continued in the family of that prince until A.D. 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabella planted the cross upon the towers of the Alhambra; a period of upwards of two centuries and a half.

The new kingdom erected by Mohammed Alhamar might have presented as impassable a barrier to the Christian arms as Turkey has offered, from the conquest of Constantinople to the present day, had not anarchy and dissension pervaded the other provinces of the Spanish peninsula, yet subject to the Moslems. But, jealous of each other, and differing in their views, they fell successively before the two enterprising sovereigns who, at that period, occupied the thrones of Castile and Aragon. Thus Cordoba, which had already ceded the pre-eminence to Seville, fell, unaided, into the hands of the Castillian in the very year that Granada became the capital of a formidable Mohammedan kingdom; and Valencia, only two years later, was also finally added to the conquests of the Christians. Even the city of Jaen, though fiercely contested for by Mohammed Alhamar, was at last ceded by treaty to his better-supported antagonist, San Fernando, who then, with consummate policy, forming an alliance with the king of Granada, induced him to assist in the subjugation of Seville.

This important city, which, a short time previously, had adopted a Republican form of government, and, with democratic jealousy, had kept aloof whilst the Christians were crippling the growing power of the neighbouring kingdom of Granada, now reaped the fruits of its short-sighted policy; being obliged, after a short but obstinate struggle, to bend the neck to the Castillian yoke.

Murcia on one side, and Algarbe on the other, were soon afterwards added to the conquests of the allied sovereigns of Castile and Aragon. So that, before the first monarch of Granada had closed his reign, all the Mohammedan states and cities, which had repudiated his alliance, fell in detail to the Christian arms.

The kingdom of Mohammed Alhamar, which thenceforth had to contend single-handed against the Christians, was respectable in size, though but a fragment of the vast dominions of the Caliphs of the West. It extended far beyond the limits of the modern kingdom of Granada, and comprised all the mountainous portions of those of Jaen, Cordoba, Seville, and Murcia; thus stretching along the sea-shore from Cape Trafalgar to Cape de Gatte, and forming a compact and very defensible territory.

Its population, too, was great beyond all proportion to its extent; the inhabitants of the various cities captured by the Christians having, by an inconceivable act of barbarity and impolicy, been driven from their homes to seek shelter within the mountain-girt kingdom of Granada. So enormous, indeed, is the amount of population said to have been, that the Capital alone could furnish an army of 50,000 fighting men.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the Moors, thus concentrated, should have been able to maintain their independence for so extended a period; especially, when we consider the want of unanimity that prevailed amongst the Christian princes, from the death of St. Ferdinand until the union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon, in the persons of Ferdinand V. and Isabella.

The city still covers a considerable extent of ground, though certainly far less than it must have occupied when swarming with half a million Mohammedans. The approach to it, on the Malaga side, is particularly fine; a handsome stone bridge (built by the French during their occupation of the province in the “war of independence”) spans the sparkling Genil—the Singilis of the Romans. Immediately beyond this bridge rise crenated walls, and terraced gardens, domes, minarets, and shining steeples, reaching to the base of the dark rocks that bear the yet darker towers of the proud Alhambra.

The precincts of the city gained, every thing bears the marks of Moslem hands. The narrow streets and gushing fountains, the lofty, flat-roofed houses, and heavy projecting balconies, are all quite oriental; whilst, here and there, the entrance of some old mosque, or ruined bath, bears, in its horse-shoe arch, the peculiar stamp of the Morisco.

Granada may certainly lay claim to the title of the most Moorish city of Spain. Some few, whose glories had passed away ere it rose to distinction, may have surpassed it in wealth, extent, and even population; and others were doubtless more distinguished for the cultivation of those arts and sciences which were cherished with such peculiar care by the Arabian conquerors of Spain. But, when the Moslem rule was drawing towards its close, and Granada had to contend alone with the Christians for existence, her monarchs, in their distress, naturally turned for help to their uncivilized brethren of Mauritania; and, as each fresh graft was taken from the original savage stock, the character of the people of Granada became more decidedly Moorish; until, at last, from the frequency of these calls, they came to differ but little from the wild nomad tribes, whose assistance they had invoked.

At its commencement, however, the new kingdom founded on the ruins of Cordoba, Seville, and Valencia, gave promise of reviving the brilliant days of the early Mohammedans—its sovereigns of rivalling the fame of the Abdalrahmans and Almanzors. The countless minarets of the renovated city selected for its capital resounded with the Muezzeem’s cries, awakening the dozing fanaticism of “the faithful;” and the bright watch-tower[133] of its proud Alhambra served as a beacon to point out where what remained of wealth and learning, in the wreck of Musa’s mighty empire, would find a safe place of refuge. But the crimes which soon soiled the throne of Alhamar, the fierce contentions of the Princes of the Royal house, and the interminable civil wars to which their pretentions led, so exhausted Granada’s strength, that, stripped one by one of her bulwarks, cut off from external succour, and torn by intestine dissension, she at length fell an easy prey to her persevering enemies; and, at her fall, expired the flickering light of Mohammedan civilization;—a civilization, which, considering the withering tendency of the Arabian impostor’s scheme of religion, furnishes much greater cause for surprise, than even the rapid propagation and wide spread of the pernicious creed itself.

The decadence of the arts kept pace with that in the manners of the inhabitants of this fair region;—both being natural consequences of the internal struggles by which it was agitated. The olive tree could not thrive in soil moistened only with the blood of its cultivators.

During this period of progressive deterioration were erected most of the Moslem buildings, whose remains are yet scattered throughout the city; and, whilst in some points of character these monuments exhibit a marked difference from the Arabian structures of the East, they are more purely Moorish than any other Saracenic edifices to be met with in Spain, and are infinitely superior, in every respect, to such as were erected in Barbary at a yet more recent date.

The literature of the Moors of Spain would doubtless have exhibited a similar decadence and peculiarity of character; but on these points we have not the means of judging, the fanatic destroyer of the celebrated library of the Ptolemies having, seven centuries afterwards, found an unworthy imitator in Cardinal Ximenes—at whose instigation every scrap of Mohammedan literature found within the captured city of Granada was, with intolerant fury, committed to the flames.