I made the circuit of the walls before entering the Palace.  In the Place of the Cisterns, I stopped to take a drink of the cool water of the Darro, which is brought thither by subterranean channels from the hills.  Then, passing the ostentatious pile commenced by Charles V., but which was never finished, and never will be, nor ought to be, we walked along the southern ramparts to the Tower of the Seven Floors, amid the ruins of winch I discerned the top of the arch by which the unfortunate Boabdil quitted Granada, and which was thenceforth closed for ever.  In the Tower of the Infantas, a number of workmen were busy restoring the interior, which has been cruelly damaged.  The brilliant azulejo, or tile-work, the delicate arches and filigree sculpture of the walls, still attest its former elegance, and give some color to the tradition that it was the residence of the Moorish Princesses.

As we passed through the little village which still exists among the ruins of the fortress, Mateo invited me to step in and see his father, the genuine “honest Mateo,” immortalized in the “Tales of the Alhambra.”  The old man has taken up the trade of silk-weaving, and had a number of gay-colored ribbons on his loom.  He is more than sixty years old and now quite gray-headed, but has the same simple manners, the same honest face that attracted his temporary master.  He spoke with great enthusiasm of Mr. Irving, and brought out from a place of safety the “Alhambra” and the “Chronicles of the Conquest,” which he has carefully preserved.  He then produced an Andalusian sash, the work of his own hands, which he insisted on binding around my waist, to see how it would look.  I must next take off my coat and hat, and put on his Sunday jacket and jaunty sombrero. “Por Dios!” he exclaimed:  “que buen mozo!  Senor, you are a legitimate Andalusian!” After this, of course, I could do no less than buy the sash.  “You must show it to Washington Irving,” said he, “and tell him it was made by Mateo’s own hands;” which I promised.  I must then go into the kitchen, and eat a pomegranate from his garden—­a glorious pomegranate, with kernels of crimson, and so full of blood that you could not touch them but it trickled through your fingers.  El Marques, a sprightly dog, and a great slate-colored cat, took possession of my legs, and begged for a share of every mouthful I took, while old Mateo sat beside me, rejoicing in the flavor of a Gibraltar cigar which I gave him.  But my time was precious, and so I let the “Son of the Alhambra” go back to his loom, and set out for the Palace of the Moorish Kings.