ed on his mission of discovering
a new world. The rich and fertile Vega, as we rode with the speed of
the wind over it, seemed to me like a fairy land--so luxuriant
the vegetation--so rich the meadows and fields of waving grain--so
exquisite the variety of cottages, and villages, and groves, dotting
so vast a plain--so pure and transparent the atmosphere, that the most
distant objects are as clearly defined as those nearest us. Imagine
so lovely a landscape--thirty miles in length by twenty-five in width,
surrounded by tremendous mountains,--those of the Sierra Nevada,
rising back of Grenada to the height of thirteen thousand feet above
the level of the sea, their summits covered by a dazzling mantle
of snow: imagine this, and you will have some faint idea of this
beautiful Eden of Spain. It is worth a long pilgrimage to gaze but
for one moment upon it, particularly from the Torre de la Vela of the
Alhambra, whence I have beheld it, both in the bright, gay sunshine,
and through the solemnly beautiful night, illumined by the stars and
moon.

The walks and gardens of Grenada are exceedingly beautiful. The
principal promenade is called (and very appropriately) El Salon. It is
of considerable extent--about eighty feet in width, with regular lines
of lofty elms on either side, the bending branches of which nearly
meet in an arch overhead. At both extremities of this charming avenue
is a large and handsome fountain of ever-flowing water. The ground
of the walk is hard--slightly curved; and as smooth and clean as the
floor of a ball-room, where convenient seats of stone, tastefully
arranged beneath the shade of the spreading trees, seem to invite
one to meditation and repose. Outside of this lovely promenade, are
blooming gardens, teeming with roses and other flowers, which fill
the air with fragrance, while through them on one side runs the river
Darre, and on the other the Xenie--gentle streams, whose waters unite
their melodious rippling to the chorus of nightingales, ever singing
above their pleasant banks. But description is tiresome, especially
when one is attempting to present something beyond his power, so I
shall not fatigue you with it any longer: besides, a worthy English
curate, now my only companion in this wretched hotel, is boring me so
incessantly with conversation that I find it difficult to collect any
thoughts to put on paper. I wish he was already in heaven, as, surely,
he well deserves to be.

It was my