poetry and romance have shed
over this enchanting place...

"The more I contemplate these places, the more my admiration is
awakened for the elegant habits and delicate taste of the Moorish
monarchs. The delicately ornamented walls; the aromatic groves,
mingling with the freshness and the enlivening sounds of fountains
and rivers of water; the retired baths, bespeaking purity and
refinement; the balconies and galleries; open to the fresh mountain
breeze, and overlooking the loveliest scenery of the valley of the
Darro and the magnificent expanse of the vega,--it is impossible to
contemplate this delicious abode and not feel an admiration of the
genius and the poetical spirit of those who first devised this
earthly paradise. There is an intoxication of heart and soul in
looking over such scenery at this genial season. All nature is just
teeming with new life, and putting on the first delicate verdure and
bloom of spring. The almond-trees are in blossom; the fig-trees are
beginning to sprout; everything is in the tender bud, the young
leaf, or the half-open flower. The beauty of the season is but half
developed, so that while there is enough to yield present delight,
there is the flattering promise of still further enjoyment. Good
heavens! after passing two years amidst the sunburnt wastes of
Castile, to be let loose to rove at large over this fragrant and
lovely land!"

It was not easy, however, even in the Alhambra, perfectly to call up the
past:

"The verity of the present checks and chills the imagination in its
picturings of the past. I have been trying to conjure up images of
Boabdil passing in regal splendor through these courts; of his
beautiful queen; of the Abencerrages, the Gomares, and the other
Moorish cavaliers, who once filled these halls with the glitter of
arms and the splendor of Oriental luxury; but I am continually
awakened from my reveries by the jargon of an Andalusian peasant who
is setting out rose-bushes, and the song of a pretty Andalusian girl
who shows the Alhambra, and who is chanting a little romance that
has probably been handed down from generation to generation since
the time of the Moors."

In another letter, written from Seville, he returns to the subject of
the Moors. He is describing an excursion to Alcala de la Guadayr