I have made a vow
never to drink aguardiente again. Two of us got drunk on it, four or five
years ago, in Granada, and we quarrelled. My comrade drew his knife and
stabbed me here, in the left shoulder. I was furious and cut him across
the breast. We both went to the hospital--I for three months and he for
six--and he died in a few days after getting out. It cost my poor father
many a thousand reals; and when I was able to go to work, I vowed before
the Virgin that I would never touch aguardiente again."

For the first league, our road lay over the rich Vega of Granada, but
gradually became wilder and more waste. Passing the long, desert ridge,
known as the "Last Sigh of the Moor," we struck across a region of low
hills. The road was very deep, from the recent rains, and studded, at
short intervals, by rude crosses, erected to persons who had been
murdered. Jose took a grim delight in giving me the history of each.
Beyond the village of Lamala, which lies with its salt-pans in a basin of
the hills, we ascended the mountain ridge which forms the southern
boundary of the Vega. Granada, nearly twenty miles distant, was still
visible. The Alhambra was dwindled to a speck, and I took my last view of
it and the magnificent landscape which lies spread out before it. The
Sierra Nevada, rising to the height of 13,000 feet above the sea, was
perfectly free from clouds, and the whole range was visible at one
glance. All its chasms were filled with snow, and for nearly half-way down
its sides there was not a speck of any other color. Its summits were
almost wholly devoid of shadow, and their notched and jagged outlines
rested flatly against the sky, like ivory inlaid on a table of
lapis-lazuli.

From these waste hills, we descended into the valley of Cacia, whose
poplar-fringed river had been so swollen by the rains that the _correo_
from Malaga had only succeeded in passing it that morning. We forded it
without accident, and, crossing a loftier and bleaker range, came down
into the valley of the Marchan. High on a cliff over the stream stood
Alhama, my resting-place for the night. The natural warm baths, on account
of which this spot was so beloved by the Moors, are still resorted to in
the summer. They lie in the bosom of a deep and rugged gorge, half a mile
further down the river. The town occupies the crest of a narrow
promontory, bounded, on all sides but one, by tremendous precipices. It is
one of the most picturesque spots