to myself the scene when this place was filled with the conquering host, that mixture of mitred prelate and shaven monk, and steel-clad knight and silken courtier; when crosses and crosiers and religious standards were mingled with proud armorial ensigns and the banners of the haughty chiefs of Spain, and flaunted in triumph through these Moslem halls.  I picture to myself Columbus, the future discoverer of a world, taking his modest stand in a remote corner, the humble and neglected spectator of the pageant.  I see in imagination the Catholic sovereigns prostrating themselves before the altar, and pouring forth thanks for their victory; while the vaults resound with sacred minstrelsy and the deep-toned Te Deum.

“The transient illusion is over,—­the pageant melts from the fancy,—­monarch, priest, and warrior return into oblivion with the poor Moslems over whom they exulted.  The hall of their triumph is waste and desolate.  The bat flits about its twilight vault, and the owl hoots from the neighboring tower of Comares.”

It is a Moslem tradition that the court and army of Boabdil, the Unfortunate, the last Moorish King of Granada, are shut up in the mountain by a powerful enchantment, and that it is written in the book of fate that when the enchantment is broken, Boabdil will descend from the mountain at the head of his army, resume his throne in the Alhambra, and gathering together the enchanted warriors from all parts of Spain, reconquer the Peninsula.  Nothing in this volume is more amusing and at the same time more poetic and romantic than the story of “Governor Manco and the Soldier,” in which this legend is used to cover the exploit of a dare-devil contrabandista.  But it is too long to quote.  I take, therefore, another story, which has something of the same elements, that of a merry, mendicant student of Salamanca, Don Vicente by name, who wandered from village to village, and picked up a living by playing the guitar for the peasants, among whom, he was sure of a hearty welcome.  In the course of his wandering he had found a seal-ring, having for its device the cabalistic sign, invented by King Solomon the Wise, and of mighty power in all cases of enchantment.

“At length he arrived at the great object of his musical vagabondizing, the far-famed city of Granada, and hailed with wonder and delight its Moorish towers, its lovely vega, and its snowy mountains glistening through a summer atmosphere.  It is needless to say with what eager curiosity he entered its gates and wandered through its streets, and gazed upon its Oriental monuments.  Every female face peering through a window or beaming from a balcony was to him a Zorayda or a Zelinda, nor could he meet a stately dame on the Alameda but he was ready to fancy her a Moorish princess, and to spread his student’s robe beneath her feet.

“His musical talent, his happy humor, his youth and his good looks, won him