him the reason of this.  “I drink wine.  Senor,” he replied, “because that, you know, is like meat and bread; but 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 imaginable, and reminded me—­to continue the comparison between Syria and Andalusia, which I find so striking—­of the gorge of the Barrada, near Damascus.  Alhama is now a poor, insignificant town, only visited by artists and muleteers.  The population wear long brown cloaks and slouched hats, like the natives of La Mancha.